


Found a friend, while the sea was running wild

by Toyota_Hobbies



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is a fisherman, Gen, Just Friendship, Not Beta Read, Snake!Crowley - Freeform, crowley is a snake, no bestiality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23055046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toyota_Hobbies/pseuds/Toyota_Hobbies
Summary: Aziraphale has lived at the coast for years, gaining his sustenance from the sea. When he finds a strange serpent swimming at his usual fishing spot, he traces a new objective: to catch it and uncover its mysteries.(Story finished, daily updates)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, my grandmother told me the summary of a book called "The old man and the sea", and this fanfic happened. English is not my first language and I appreciate if anyone pointed out any mistakes. Hope ya'll enjoy!

Aziraphale picked up his trusted fishing rod and a bucket full of bait. His dinghy boat sat where he had let it last night, anchored to the small pier at the shore in front of his small cottage. 

One thing, however, made his routine of "waking up, go fishing" different. A heavy garden net resting against the bench of his small beige boat. He had never needed gardening nets, and Aziraphale's purpose for this one was nothing short of unconventional.

He had acquired it the day before, after taking the two-hour trip to the near village by foot. The clerk who had sold him the net had been fairly surprised, what with Aziraphale having taken a sudden like to gardening? Had the fisherman grown tired of the sea and its unchanging sameness?

At the young man's surprise, Aziraphale had simply smiled and reassured him that he and all the others in the village would soon understand it. Before parting, he traded his fish for the week's vegetables and sold his chicken's eggs, and was back to his rigorous routine.

As always, Aziraphale pushed the oar against the wood pier and sailed towards the rising sun. The morning light engulfed him, protecting against the cold provided by the droplets of water that inevitably jumped at him. The waves hit the boat, making him go up-and-down in the rhythmic that so often caused the young and inexperienced to feel seasick.

But Aziraphale was used to it, gaining his sustain from the sea for so many years now, going out into the ocean thrice a week to get fish to both eat and trade at the village.

Sailors often came and went to the small village. They thought the old seaman crazy, what with going into the ocean without any astrolabe or foursquare, only using his trusted compass as means of navigation.

However, he knew that sea as he knew his own cottage, he knew when the tide would rise and when it would fall, knew the right moment to go back before a storm hit. Aziraphale knew the way back, he only had to follow the setting sun, because the star always set behind his house and disappeared behind the hills in his backyard, only to rise again at the sea to where Aziraphale sailed.

Aziraphale, who thought he knew all the creatures, big and small, that inhabited the sea outside his house.

Only to find something he didn't know.

Something he had never seen, and had scared him out of his mind when he stumbled upon it two weeks ago.

_Thin rain bounced shyly against the waves, a veil of moisture so thin Aziraphale could hardly feel it against the few parts of his skin that his raincoat failed to protect._

_He could feel this was just some morning rain and wouldn't escalate into a storm, or at least not any time soon. And so, he threw his fishing net and the line of his rod on the water._

_Then, he pulled the white tarpaulin he always carried on his boat and extended it above his head to provide more shelter from the rain as it started pouring down harder._

_The rings to tie the tarpaulin were just one of the many changes Aziraphale had made to the boat. It didn't even look like a dinghy anymore, being somewhat bigger than the other boats of this type and with all the changes and modifications the fisherman had made along the years, including an engine just in case of emergencies, though he had never used it before._

_Just as Aziraphale had started to drift into a sleep soothed by the sound of water against the sailcloth above, he felt something collide against the boat, making it swing wildly to the sides._

_Aziraphale jumped awake, adjusting to the sudden motion, and grabbed one of the long metal rods with a sharp end he kept on the boat and turned around, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever caused that. Sharks were unusual there, and they rarely went so far from the open ocean, but a few encounters had taught Aziraphale to always be prepared._

_But what Aziraphale saw was not the king of the ocean, but a giant snake like creature swimming, circling his boat under the waves._

_He knew some serpents could swim, of course. But no snake went that far into the ocean. Snakes didn't get into the sea, they only swam in lakes and rivers. And the shadow contrasting against the waves was much bigger than any type of snake Aziraphale had ever seen._

_He remembered the strange and funny movie he had watched so many years ago, Anaconda, how the giant serpent coiled around the human characters, consuming them whole, unstopped by any of the weapon the characters used. Suddenly felt like one of the people who often told stories of meeting Ness, which he never believed in._

_But the shape soon disappeared down the waves, morphing back to the depths._

_It had been a long time since Aziraphale had had a case of cabin fever, but oh well, it happened from times to times._

_When he went fishing again, three days later, the shape appeared once again._

_This time, instead of circling the boat, it coiled around itself, as if wondering what to do next. Then, it stole one of the fishes stuck on the fishing net and disappeared once again._

_It appeared the other three times Aziraphale went fishing. The fisherman tried to hit it with his rod, and he was sure he was able to do so at least one time as the great creature swam away, bleeding, that last day._

_He'd asked casually among the sailors of the village if there had been any unusual animal sightings, and received only negative answers. Then he'd mentioned the snake-like creature, to which the sailor he had been talking to asked if the lonely fisherman had gone crazy, for sea monsters only existed in fairytales of centuries ago, when mankind feared the vastness of the ocean._

_Aziraphale's routine was always the same, and that's how he liked to take his life. Go fishing in the morning, then feed the chicken and collect eggs. Cook the meal for the day, and spend the rest of the day reading or going out into the grassy plains outside his house and maybe take some pictures if he found anything interesting. A hunting to spice things up sure would be interesting. He hadn’t gone hunting for a specific target for a long time, since he moved to the isolated cottage at the coast so many years ago. Maybe, after catching the snake, he would be the first man to see the real Anaconda._

_It wouldn't even be that much trouble; he just had to acquire a net to trap the snake inside, and finally discover what new kind of creature that was. Maybe he could name it. Something like Oceanus Swimmingnus Snakes. Yes, that sounded like one of the scientific names he had seen on one of the few books about animal life he owned._

And Aziraphale would be lying if he said he didn't feel a thrill of different excitement when he boarded the boat that morning. The prospective of understanding what exactly was the alluring shadow under the water was tempting and thrilling. To be fair, it was the only thing that bordered interesting to happen on that coast. 

Aziraphale was getting almost impatient, because as a fisherman his patience was endless, in a capacity in which he could keep his mind at the state of "almost impatient" for days if needed, but never truly Impatient, when the shadowy snake appeared again. It bumped its body against the hull in an almost playful gesture and Aziraphale didn't even feel unbalanced anymore.

The snake didn't circle the boat. It went to the front of it and stretched its body that was much longer than what Aziraphale had first thought, and floated lazily within the waves, letting its body follow the movement of the sea, the same as the boat.

And it just seemed to study the boat, never letting its body come above the waves, making it impossible to distinguish its colors let alone see its eyes. Still being nothing but a shadow under the water.

"Come on, come closer! I'm ready for you," Aziraphale murmured, holding the net on the wooden floor of the boat. With the snake being much bigger than initially thought, it would have to come closer if Aziraphale wanted to catch it in the net. He regretted hitting it with the rod two days ago, as that might have been the reason to its hesitation to come closer like in the previous encounters.

The time passed, and the snake kept still, maintaining the same distance from the boat, going back if Aziraphale pushed forward, and going forward if Aziraphale pushed back. Not letting him close, but not letting them drift apart, either.

More time passed by, and Aziraphale retrieved the fishing net, now full of fish, aboard. The snake swung from side to side, as if feeling teased by the fish dangling in front of it but not coming closer. It didn't seem so tense, now.

Aziraphale tried to hold a fish as far from the boat as possible and attract the animal, but the serpent held itself back, refusing to fall for the bait.

Then, it submerged and disappeared back in the dark waters of the sea.

However, Aziraphale wasn't dispirited.

He had just the perfect idea to catch the serpent in two days, when he went fishing again.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, after feeding the chicken and collecting their eggs, Aziraphale went straight to the small warehouse. He remembered vividly his boyish years, living close to farmlands and learning with the farmers when his father was away fishing alone.

Snakes were hard to see, and hard to catch. They were slippery and flexible. The farmers used long sticks with a hook in the end to pick up snakes, and then grab them behind the neck so they couldn't bite. 

Aziraphale didn't need to do the neck grabbing part. He just had to pull the snake close enough so the net could do its job. He chose to adapt one of his rods, putting a harmless hook at the tip and taking all the thorns away. As he worked on it, he reflected on the previous day. The snake had been under the water for hours. Did it not need to breathe?

Maybe it wasn't a snake, like how dolphins and whales weren't fish. It may not even be like a serpent, it could be just an illusion created by refraction. There was a strong possibility that it was just some kind of eel, though Aziraphale had never seen such a big one before. One way or the other, he would soon find out.

He ended up hastening his fishing trip and went fishing the next day again, because he really looked forward to getting to the pit of that mystery. Not even reading the books he kept on shelves all over the cottage could keep his anticipation at bay. Hunting the snake was a new adventure, and Aziraphale hadn't had one of those for quite some time.

Aziraphale waved goodbye at his house and green fields spreading as far as one could see as he departed to the sea.

It took him almost an hour to notice that he hadn't launched the fishing net nor the fishing rod because he had been so attentively watching the waves, scanning the water for the shadow.

He rushed to do so and, when he bent over the prow, there it was! The snake swam in circles, coiling around itself and coming to rest by the hull. It was close now, so close Aziraphale wouldn't even need to use the tool he had crafted the day before.

"Hello, beauty," he said, tentatively. 

The animal twitched its tail tip, as if it could listen to Aziraphale.

The fisherman grabbed the garden net and aimed carefully. The net wasn't very big, but with the snake coiled around itself, it would be just enough to entangle most of its body.

But the moment it saw the different net, the snake started to swim farther from the boat, wary. It wasn't following the rhythmic of the sea anymore, being completely still instead, watching all of Aziraphale's movements as the fisherman put the net away, the snake being too far away from his reach, again.

Aziraphale picked up the rod instead and extended it slowly towards the creature. Upon seeing it, the serpent immediately shot off. Aziraphale threw his arm in an attempt to catch it wish the hook, but the snake slid off it gracefully. Before it disappeared down the depths however, Aziraphale caught a glimpse of its tail-tip: a dark red and black.

He felt frustrated at first. Of course, the snake had managed to escape! In the water it would be easy to slide off the hook, how hadn’t Aziraphale thought about it? But then he smiled and laughed. He had quite the cunning adversary to catch. The serpent had evaded the net, and it was obvious it wouldn’t fall for any half-assed trap.

As Aziraphale paddled the boat back home, he came to the conclusion that he had to somehow lure and distract the snake if he wanted to trap it in his net. What better way to buy your way into someone’s heart than with food? He had seen the snake eat fish before, but snakes usually fed off small rodents. It surely would be attracted by its more usual food, right?

Rats were easy to get. Aziraphale had mousetraps spread throughout his house mainly in the closed rooms where he kept the fish he caught. There weren’t as many of the small mammals as there used to be when he first moved there. The rats had learned that navigating the house and avoiding the traps was too much effort, but every now and then one of the traps would catch a particularly brave and stupid rat.

This was one of those days, Aziraphale concluded when he soon found a dead rat in one of his traps. He put the body in a pot and on the freezer, so he could take it with him the next time he went fishing.

He packed up his money and fish to sell, and set off to the village. The traders should probably be back by now, bringing the books Aziraphale had asked for a month before. When he moved to the coast, Aziraphale fully expected to just trade any book he finished reading for new ones, but he soon found himself attached to every single one he read, save for a few bad ones, and often ended up coming back to re-read passages from each one. Any books he did trade off wound up being missed by the fisherman. So, Aziraphale just bought new ones to add to his collection. 

He had even built a small shed just to store his books, on an elevated and steep piece of land so they would be safe from accumulated water from rain.

His cottage didn’t have electricity, but it was no problem to his reading. Aziraphale didn’t read at home, he went up the hills and walked the fields until he got to his favorite reading spots. A meadow at the forest, an old stone pier decorated with a bench Aziraphale had made himself and the old ruins of a fort were some of his preferred places. With the wind blowing against his face, he could truly feel engaged with whatever story he was reading at any given time.

Upon setting foot in the village, it was obvious from the gathered crowd that the traders had indeed arrived. The villages spread on the island were of hard access, so they didn’t use cars. Cars were a rare occurrence around there. There were too many moors, the terrain was often muddy from frequent rain, and the money spent to repair such a vehicle wouldn’t be worth it. So, the traders used old-fashioned caravans and horses to go from the capital, where was the main harbor of the island, and bring the merchandises to the small villages spread throughout the territory.

One of the younger traders ran up to him, a girl called Anathema.

“Hello, Mr. Aziraphale! We got the books you asked last month and I brought something else I think you’ll like,” she shook his hands excitedly before reaching to the backpack she carried and pulled a small pot containing some type of reddish dust, “The last shipment brought some new spices. Everyone was trying to get it to resell, and they ran out pretty quickly, but we were able to grab some!”  
“That’s excellent, dear girl! I’d like to try them, for sure.”

She gestured for Aziraphale to follow and took him to the back of one of the caravans, where there was a pile of books stacked.

“Those are the books.”

Aziraphale paid for them and put them away in his own backpack. Then, she showed him all the new spices they had acquired at the harbor.

If there was something the fisherman missed from the short time of his life when he had lived in a bigger city was the diversity of meals. He could enter a restaurant and find a myriad of different options. He had learned to cook, and carried the habit over to the cottage. He enjoyed trying new ingredients when available.

Aziraphale accompanied Anathema back to the inn.

“Where are you guys going next?” Aziraphale asked, as they neared the inn the traders would stay in.

“We’ll stay for some days, then we’ll go to the west coast and back to the city and the harbor.”

“I’ll drop by after tomorrow with a list of books and some fish on account of the house. See you!”

“Bye!” 

She waved at him as he turned back to the small path leading out of the city, his mind already at the snake he would hunt the following morning.

Aziraphale was already on his boat, waiting for the snake to appear. Soon enough, the shadow made its presence known by bumping against the hull and swimming a few meters away.

“Hello, buddy. What about some breakfast?” he opened the pot that contained the rat and shook the rodent just above the waves, his other hand tensed and ready to throw the net as soon as the serpent came over.

It swam forward a little bit, and wiggled its whole body. It was incredibly expressive for a shadow under the waves, and Aziraphale could imagine it frowning, if snakes had eyebrows.

“I’m just being a gentleman and offering you a meal. You spend so much time under there, don’t you wanna come up, breath and taste what I brought you?”

The snake let the lower part of its body go deeper under the water, as if shrugging.

Aziraphale knew it would not come closer. The serpent probably knew there was a scheme behind the rat, like a spooked deer spinning its ears around, ready to bolt but still willing to ignore the sound of rustling leaves that hid the tiger.

It would be like that, then. Aziraphale would have to gain the snake’s trust first. If he fed it enough times, sooner than later it would lose its reluctance and come a little closer to the hand offering him food, until, one day, he’d be within arm’s, and net’s, reach.

“Whatever, ungrateful bastard.”

Aziraphale tossed the rat over the water, and a big head emerged from the water and poked the small mammal in front of it. A small forked tongue touched the rat curiously, and Aziraphale wondered if it could sense venom. It could be worth it to try the next time he went to fish. As the snake toyed with the corpse, it kept its brilliant yellow and slit eyes on Aziraphale, the whole time, as though it were studying him.

Like the small part of its tail Aziraphale had been able to glimpse the other day, it was black, with a dark red underbelly. The fisherman had never seen a snake that big, with such a massive head. He had, of course, heard tales of big serpents found in far-off lands, but he never imagined anything this big.

“What the hell are you?”

The snake didn’t answer, just kept gulping the rat down, never taking its huge eyes off Aziraphale.

“Do you know how disturbing you are?”

It didn’t submerge again after finishing the rat, choosing to keep its incessant watch of Aziraphale from afar, its body going up-and-down as the waves passed under it. The serpent swung a little, from side to side, never standing completely still, and Aziraphale wondered if it was a sign that it might attack. He held his rod once again, just in case, and imagined another raised snake-brow. The fisherman retrieved his fishing net and took his boat home once again. So, venom would be his next try.


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale would have to start buying mice in the village somehow. Luckily, there had been another rat caught in one of his traps, but it was a rare occurrence and wouldn’t be a constant source of food for the conditioning of the snake.

He shook off the thought with a laugh. What was he even planning? His next rat was already stuffed with poison. The hunt would end that day; Aziraphale had won. The snake wouldn’t take too long to die, he’d reach out with the hook to bring the corpse closer and draw it aboard as a prize.

The serpent was already at the usual area where Aziraphale fished, with its neck and head rising above the waves. It swum a little towards the boat when it saw Aziraphale in the horizon. In that moment, it hit Aziraphale that he didn’t know how the serpent always found him. Sure, he fished in this particular spot close to some rocks a lot, but the creature had found him in other locations without much trouble. How did it do that?

Maybe it had pigeon senses.

“How are you today, eh?”

The snake flicked its tongue and hissed softly, while staring straight into Aziraphale’s eyes.

“Do you want another? The same as yesterday’s,” he dangled the rat in the air, and the snake slowly raised its head to follow the movement, “Not a difference at all.”

Aziraphale threw the rat on the water, and the serpent did as the day before, carefully inspecting the rodent. It hissed angrily after a few seconds, held the rat by the tail and threw it right back onto Aziraphale’s arms.

Do you think it’s gonna be that easy? he could almost hear the serpent saying.

It hissed even louder, jaw open and tongue waving, before diving back into the water.

“No poison then,” Aziraphale murmured to himself, followed by a shrug, “Guess I offended it.”

He leaned back and sighed, looking at the clouds above. He tried to chase off the small fear that the snake wouldn’t be back after his little stunt. It had been back after Aziraphale cut it with his rod, right? He had begun singing an old sailor’s song, and the sun was almost midday-high in the sky when Aziraphale noticed the pair of yellow eyes peeking at him from the water, the only visible part of its body, almost like a crocodile.

The serpent had come back already! When Aziraphale sat straighter to catch a glimpse of it, the snake hissed and swung threateningly from side to side, differently from their previous encounter when it had swung lazily.

“Bad humor, are we? Can’t blame a man for trying,” Aziraphale snorted.

The snake lashed its tail against the water and hissed even louder.

“Oh, shut it,” Aziraphale picked up one of the fish aboard and threw it at the snake.

The creature just looked smugly at it while the fish floated in front of its snout and hissed again, completely ignoring the free food.

“You’re… dumb,” if there was something that set Aziraphale apart from other anglers, it had to be his inability to swear effectively.

The hissing sounded more like a laugh this time.

Buying mice at the village, then. The serpent was obviously going to take more time to be willing to trust Aziraphale than there were rats living in his house. The only store that sold mice wasn’t really a shop, but the hunter’s club. The hunters often used mice as bait or to teach young hounds. Aziraphale knew they would question why the hell he was buying mice, and he went with a lie ready at the tip of his tongue. Explaining that he was after a serpent that swam in the sea would make them think Aziraphale crazy.

He would also deny any who dared accuse him of rehearsing said lie in front of the mirror.

He had never gone to the village that many times in a week. It was the third time there already! He took the opportunity and asked Anathema to try and get him a book on snakes. He just wanted to make a little research, maybe find out what kind of snake it was, or if it was a new species as he first thought. He was a hundred percent certain that it was a snake and not some type of eel. It hissed, had the same eyes as any other snake, and had the same looks.

Upon entering the hunting cabin, which was empty save for one hunter, making Aziraphale indescribably relieved, he was greeted by the man.  
“The angler Aziraphale! To what do I owe this visit?”

“Hello Gabriel. I was wondering if you still had any mice in stock?”

“Looking for a pet? We only have dead mice, you know, to train the dogs,” Gabriel gave a small laugh at his joke.

“Just the type of mouse I want.”

“Sure thing,” he turned around and went through a door that presumably took to the backroom, “Have the fish started to consume mice?”

“Not that I know of,” Aziraphale replied and then shrugged, “Just saw a snake roaming too close to the cottage and thought it wise to set a small trap in case it wandered inside.”  
Gabriel set a large wooden box on one of the tables.

“In that case, I have just what you need.”

He pulled small plastic bags that carried mouse inside.

“Perfect, just what I needed!”

It took a few more days before Aziraphale had the idea of inspecting the serpent for gills.

“Come on, let me see your gills,” Aziraphale observed the serpent through his binoculars as the reptile devoured a mouse, “You gotta have gills, right? How would you stay underwater so long otherwise?”

He inspected the sides of the serpent’s head and its neck, but found nothing. Maybe it had gills in the lower part of its body, which was underwater and out of Aziraphale’s sight, as weird as it would be. He put the binoculars down and decided it probably didn’t have gills. Maybe the snake could hold its breath for a long time.

Aziraphale had considered taking a photo of the snake, maybe show it around and ask if someone knew what animal it really was, or if he’d found an actual monster of the sea, like the ones illustrated in old maps. Those were much bigger though, so his one could be a baby. A baby sea monster, Aziraphale laughed at the thought. But photos could be easily forged, and Aziraphale didn’t want to be accused of being a fraud. Let him just show up with the proof after catching the creature.

Besides, he didn’t want people cluttering the calm sea, trying to catch the animal. Hunting it was Aziraphale’s mission now, and he didn’t wish for any interference or too much commotion close to his house.

The serpent was now swimming around and splashing water, keeping its neck above the waves all the time. Judging by its body language, it looked happy.

“You seem to like mice better than fish, huh? You’re a spoiled little brat, aren’t you?” At the sound of Aziraphale’s voice, the serpent turned and stared at him with its unblinking eyes, flicking its forked tongue curiously, “Do you go back to land in order to hunt rats yourself or do you just stay in the sea eating fish?”

The snake hissed softly.

“Or do you just wait for the stupid man who comes feed you every day?” he sighed, rubbing his temple, “God, I’m going crazy.”

The serpent went back to swimming aimlessly around, never going too close to the boat. It always kept the same distance between itself and Aziraphale, but started to close that distance bit-by-bit, every day, almost imperceptibly. Now it changed the jest to half-diving into the water, only to resurface, splash water onto the air and hit its neck on the water to make loud splash sounds accompanied by long hisses.

“Don’t you need time to digest or something? Snakes usually take time, you know. Around a week. They don’t eat every day. You’re also cold blooded, shouldn’t spend that much time in this cold water. Not to criticize, of course. You do you.”

It kept diving and getting back to the surface, continuing to ignore every rule about animal biology that Aziraphale knew.

When Aziraphale was distracted reeling the fishing rod, a large splash of water hit him right on his face, followed by hissing.

The fisherman reached for his handkerchief, because he still carried one of those, and dried his face, ignoring the whole ordeal.

The fish that had caught the bait managed to run away, but it didn’t take too long for another one to bite it.

And once more, just as Aziraphale was reeling the line, a big splash of water hit him, dampening his clothes and his hair. He dried his face, and immediately was hit again, always followed by hissing.

Aziraphale was surprised to hear himself laughing, when more water hit him. He spat the salty liquid and laughed even more.

“Is that how it’s gonna be?!”

He cupped a handful of water and threw it at the snake, who just dived and resurfaced behind him. Aziraphale took more water and shot at the serpent, who kept ducking and throwing water at him, always staying underwater just enough so Aziraphale could use his bucket to remove the excess of liquid from inside the boat.

The result was an awkward water fight, but stuffed with laughter.

A thunder was what finally interrupted the playing. In the horizon, dark clouds were beginning to clutter, and Aziraphale could see the faraway light of thunder. The sea was like that, a moment you had a clear and sunny sky to spend the afternoon with your weird sea-serpent-thingy, and the other you had to paddle back home before the storm hits and the waves grew too violent.

“I believe my visit will be shorter today, little serpent,” Aziraphale said, grabbing the oars and retreating.

The serpent followed the boat for some time, its eyes looking disappointed, but stopped when he saw land and dived back to the ocean, leaving Aziraphale with a distinct feeling of solitude.

Now that the storm was closer, Aziraphale could see it would be a big one. The clouds were a dark gray and the first rain had started and was escalating fast. The lightnings were already strong and loud.

When Aziraphale got to the shore, he immediately pulled the boat to the sand, instead of tying it to the pier, and stored it in the warehouse. When strong storms hit the coast, the waves grew bigger and the tide advanced to the beach, dragging anything it touched back to the ocean, including boats if those were not well anchored. Next, he went to the hen house and rushed the chicken back inside, locking them safely inside, and finally entered the house to wait for the storm to pass.

Staying outside during such storms was not a very good idea. In a place with so few buildings, it wasn’t uncommon for the wind to rip out tree branches, and being the person in the way of a speeding trunk wasn’t ideal.

The storm was only growing stronger by the moment and giving no signs of coming down. Aziraphale begun to worry about the possibility of it escalating to a hurricane, typhoon, tornado, cyclone, or whatever it was people called these nowadays. He knew it wasn’t an impossible occurrence, but he had been lucky in his years of living there. He had a shelter underground, of course, just in case, but never needed to use it.

Aziraphale wondered what the serpent would do if a hurricane hit. Dive as deep as possible, or maybe swim as far away as possible? Or had it already returned to safe land? It probably lived in some island, or maybe on the very same island Aziraphale lived in. It was probably hidden underground, safely hidden from the winds.

Night came and went, the rain kept strong and the wind still ran wild outside, but begun to decrease by late afternoon. At night, the storm had passed, leaving in its wake quite the trail of destruction and debris for Aziraphale to clean the following morning.


	4. Chapter 4

By morning, after breakfast, Aziraphale finally took courage to scout the destruction left behind by the storm. Branches, leaves and pieces of wood and metal were thrown all around the ground, clamping the place. He could estimate a whole day of cleaning, maybe more. Aziraphale would have to pile up the wreckages in a corner and then call someone from the village to come pick everything up.

He begun by clearing up the chicken pen and opening their shack so the chicken could taste the fresh morning air. Looking around, Aziraphale could tell it would likely take a whole day to get all cleaned up. No going fishing today, then. He tried to ignore the small twinge of sadness at the thought.

As he worked to bring his land back to an appropriated shape, Aziraphale’s mind wandered back to the sea snake. Was it waiting for him to come and feed it? Would it be disappointed the fisherman wasn’t coming today? It had been almost four weeks since they met, a week and a half of going out to the ocean every single day to feed the animal. He liked the sea, but spending each day there wasn’t Aziraphale’s idea of fun. Some days he didn’t fish at all, otherwise he would end up with more fish than one could eat and sell. Those days Aziraphale only went out there to feed the serpent, stayed for one or two hours and went back home.

He was almost done cleaning, the pile of trash of a respectable size as far as possible from the cottage, when a slim shape emerged on the beach and hissed impatiently. Aziraphale couldn’t help but break into a grin at the sight of the snake, that was now resting on the edge of the sand, the waves gently hitting it in their incessant movements and causing the scales to shine in an iridescent black under the sun.

“The food didn’t come to you, so you came to the food, hm?”

The snake turned its face and hissed, for the first time not staring straight into Aziraphale’s eyes, but looking at the sand. The fisherman started to approach, but it promptly glared at him, hissing and retreating to the water.

Aziraphale felt a little disappointed. And a healthy portion of scared at the fact the snake knew where he lived. Maybe he should start locking the windows at night.

“No getting close, I get it,” he sighed, “I’ll get what you came for.”

He went inside the house in order to pick up a mouse, and the serpent followed him for a few meters before stopping. Aziraphale went back to the beach and swayed the mouse in front of the reptile in a mocking mimic of the way the serpent usually swung from side-to-side that probably made it feel offended and embarrassed. 

“If you want, you can come get it,” Aziraphale flicked his finger at the serpent.

Its hiss had much more outrage imbued in it than any snarl in the animal king had any right to have.

“Come on, pretty.”

The serpent looked from the mouse to Aziraphale and back again. Slithered up forward a little bit, still hesitant. The fisherman inclined his head and crouched, reminding himself furiously that this was not a dog and therefore wouldn’t feel compelled to approach by random hand signs.

“I’ll put it down here…” he put the mouse on the sand then backed up a few steps, “…And withdraw. How’s that?” he smiled tentatively at the serpent.

_Come on, jerk._

It slithered closer, then stopped. The snake stared at Aziraphale, then moved again, its neck and head raised above the ground all the time. Then, it stopped and dropped back to the sand again, flattening itself to the ground. 

“Okay, alright, I get it.”

Aziraphale backed away more steps, fully aware that this was an important moment in the snake’s process of trusting him. The serpent went closer, Aziraphale backed away, and the snake approached once more, finally getting to the mouse. It sniffed the rodent with the forked tongue as it always did. Without losing a beat, it grabbed the mouse by the tail and dragged its meal back to the edge of the water, eliciting an exasperated sigh from Aziraphale.

“You’re a drama queen, and a high cost, low reward pet, did you know?” he went back to work while the animal swallowed its meal whole, laying down on the sand afterwards in order to watch Aziraphale.

Now that the serpent was on land, Aziraphale could see that it really had no gills. How it kept underwater for long stretches of time would remain a mystery, at least until he caught the snake. Then, he could ask a biologist to study it or something. Maybe he could sell it to a zoo, and it would meet other, less disturbing, snakes.

His assessment of the serpent until now was as it follows:

1) No gills, but can somehow stay underwater for a lot of time  
2) Could always find Aziraphale’s boat, no matter where he was fishing  
3) Is a shameless opportunist  
4) Or maybe Gabriel’s mice had special flavor (had he been hiding marijuana inside the mice? Was the poor creature addicted?)  
5) Or it’s lazy to hunt by itself  
6) Stealth. Had to be good hiding, how come no one ever encountered such a big snake swimming around?  
7) Is way too expressive for an animal with no eyelids, principally the body language  
8) Or maybe Aziraphale was partly imagining it  
9) Is a total scoundrel  
10) How long until Aziraphale started talking to it? He did it already, didn’t he? Oh, bugger.

He should add an eleventh item: it seemed to be a meter and a half long, maybe two. It had to be a new record in snake length, right?

By the end of afternoon, the cleaning was done, and the serpent had drawn too many lines on the sand from slithering around. Aziraphale was happy to notice the creature had not eaten any of his chicken, though it had slithered to the pen quite a few times to harass the poor birds. One memorable moment had been when it burrowed itself into the ground and waited until a hen stepped on its head only to emerged again, covered in dirty a hissing. 

The hen took off, screaming like it had just witness a murder (which was, to a certain extent, true. That hen’s dignity was dead alright). Amused hisses (Aziraphale didn’t know how hisses could sound amused, but here they were) followed the panicked bird as the serpent wound itself on the fence.

The fisherman tried to casually approach it from behind, but the snake made it back to the beach on record time.

The serpent was back to the water now, going back into the ocean as the sun set. Aziraphale waved at it as it went.

“Bye! Do come visit again, dear.”

Aziraphale went to sleep with the certainty that he had gone mad.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale walked down to the beach, smiling when he was greeted by the familiar shape waiting for him at the edge of the sand. Funny the way the serpent now waited for him at the pier every day, as if it had always been a part of the fisherman’s routine. It would accompany Aziraphale as he went to fish, and go back to the shore with him. If they came back early, the snake would sometimes spend the day at the beach, going closer to the house or following the fisherman around if he got curious about whatever task Aziraphale was doing. It had never followed him to any of his reading spots, though, which Aziraphale found quite disheartening. And when the night came, it would slither back to the sea.

The serpent would always be joyful when Aziraphale threw it a new object to play with. He had given it oars, funny stones, logs and, on one occasion, wool, though the serpent didn’t like the tangling potential of the ball. It took special pleasure in toying with rocks and piling them in different shapes that held no logical meaning to Aziraphale, but left the snake rolling in the sand and hissing (laughing?) upon completion.

“Are we ready to go, dear?”

The serpent hissed excitedly and dove in the water like a dolphin.

“What if I showed you a nice place, hm?” Aziraphale asked as he untied the rope holding his boat.

There wasn’t any disapproving glare, so he supposed it was a _yessss._

A smaller island could be found not too far away from the one where Aziraphale lived. There wasn’t anyone living there, and the only ones to dock in there were the occasional tourist cruisers.

Aziraphale had done his fair share of exploring in that island and had even drawn a small map signaling general directions to places he might find useful. There were a few very interesting fruitful trees growing there and more weird insects than Aziraphale found necessary.

The best part in Aziraphale’s opinion, however, was the view. The shore of the island was circled by big stones, like a natural fort. There were lots of rivers crossing the land, and somewhere close to the center of the island, there was a series of waterfalls. Of course, they weren’t as impressive as the big ones, like Niagara Falls, but it was like a small paradise, nonetheless.

Aziraphale pulled his boat onto the sand as far away as possible to make sure the high tide wouldn’t push it into the sea, and the serpent followed close by, glaring at the fisherman with some curiosity.

Aziraphale signaled to the snake, “Follow me.”

He walked to the edge of the lush forest, only to find that the creature had not followed him, choosing to stay at the sand instead and watch from afar. It looked tense and ready to bolt back into the water anytime soon, and Aziraphale thought he understood the hesitation. Following him into the close territory of the forest would make it ever so easy to an ambush by the fisherman.

Catching it unaware would have been a fine plan, and Aziraphale should have thought about it before.

“Let’s go, I promise there aren’t traps or other people in this island,” he tried for a reassuring smile, but the serpent was adamant of not even getting close to the forest.

It wouldn’t follow Aziraphale into unknown territory yet, no matter how at ease the serpent was when they were at sea, or close to his house. The fisherman felt a little hurt by the lack of trust, but it wasn’t without its foundation. Aziraphale was, after all, building up that proverbial bridge only to burn it up in the near future.

“So, I’ll go in there grab some fruit and you wait for me here, how’s that?”

The snake hissed and slithered up to the boat, and, to Aziraphale’s surprise, entering it and resting his head over the prow.

Aziraphale picked up some fruits form the trees and put them in a basket. He didn’t go over to the waterfalls. He had seen it many times before, and was really more interested about what would be the snake’s reaction to that place, if it didn’t know the waterfall existed in the first place. Maybe it would jump from the rocks and into the water, or just chill under the falling water.

When he got to the beach, the snake got out of the boat upon seeing him return, but when they made their way back to Aziraphale’s island, the serpent swam so close to the hull that it was almost touching the boat. 

That was a great opportunity to throw the net at it but there were to problems:

1) Although the snake was swimming really close to the boat, the small distance between them was enough so it could bolt in case Aziraphale tried anything.  
2) Aziraphale had forgotten said net at home, because he didn’t carry it with him all the time anymore.

Besides, Aziraphale wanted to wait for the perfect opportunity, because if he missed, he would hardly have a second chance.

Somewhere in the middle of the journey back, Aziraphale remembered to actually feed the snake. He picked up a mouse, surprised that the serpent hadn’t eaten any of them during the time it spent in the boat and held it out. The snake surfaced by the hull and slithered up the side of the boat in order to reach Aziraphale’s hand.

It took the mouse and swallowed it whole. Aziraphale and the serpent were now face-to-face. It stared at Aziraphale and flicked its tongue, in a slow manner Aziraphale thought might denote hesitance.

Aziraphale didn’t take his eyes off the serpent either, and reached a tentative hand towards the black head, wondering if snakes liked head pats, when the animal dove back to the water, snarling dramatically and circling the boat.

“A bit dramatic, are we?” a little smile touched his lips as he watched the serpent splash water all around the boat.

Once more, the snake followed him back home and watched the fisherman as he secured the boat to the pier. Losing interest, it went to its favorite place in Aziraphale’s land: the chicken pen.

Aziraphale didn’t think he understood the fun the serpent seemed to get from harassing the poor birds, but it looked happy every time it saw the feathered animals, which always ran back inside their pen when they saw the serpent approaching.

Sure enough, as Aziraphale warmed up his dinner, desperate cries came from the chicken pen, followed by the ever-present hisses. Aziraphale laughed and looked outside the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the chaos the reptile was causing outside, and saw a rooster jump onto the air desperately.

Aziraphale was probably the only person who let a predator close to his animals, but he was fairly sure the serpent didn’t fancy chicken meat. Or it thought terrorizing them was a better use to the birds.

The fisherman dinned on a small table outside of his house, watching the serpent on the grass, that watched him back. No eyelids made it impossible to tell if it was sleeping or not, but Aziraphale suspected it was wide awake, relaxing with the soft night breeze on its back.


	6. Chapter 6

Aziraphale was sure this day was the day. The serpent now came almost inside the boat by itself to get the mouse from Aziraphale, though it wouldn’t stay this close for long or on land. It no longer inspected the offered meal as thoroughly and was more playful than ever, swimming in large circles around the boat and seeming satisfied when it could elicit a laugh from Aziraphale with its jesters. The wait was over. 

Aziraphale promptly ignored the small hole opening inside of him.

He had the creature’s trust, and the mission was over. Aziraphale held out the mouse when the snake appeared above the waves. It didn’t hesitate before approaching, slithering up the boat and standing within arm’s reach. The serpent was hanging on the hull, half outside and half inside the boat, flicking its tongue eagerly at Aziraphale as it reached for the rat.

The serpent didn’t even see Aziraphale’s net coming.

Caught in the gardening net, the serpent stilled at first, as if processing what had happened. Then, it hissed angrily and started to wiggle madly, contorting and coiling, but every move it made only caused it to get more tangled up in the net as Aziraphale pulled it aboard.

A wave of satisfaction hit Aziraphale and he felt victorious.

“I did it! I won!”

The serpent hissed more frantically and tried to reach Aziraphale, jaws wide open and unblinking eyes piercing right through the fisherman’s soul. He quickly grabbed the serpent’s neck and held it against the wooden floor of the boat, protecting against the animal’s bites.

Angry hissing gave way to wretched squeaks and the serpent slowly stopped fighting under Aziraphale’s hands to stop the net from strangling it further. It flicked the forked tongue once, twice, and Aziraphale could almost imagine pleading in its eyes.

“I got you, at last,” he spoke, as the hole in his soul begun to widen, “I must admit, my friend, you were quite the wily adversary. It was fun, while it lasted.”

Aziraphale ran a tentative hand through the serpent’s coils, his smile slowly fading as realization hit him.

“It’s over.”

He should be happy, but he wasn’t.

The serpent averted its gaze and stared in the distance, back to the ocean, and left Aziraphale to his thoughts. It had given up fighting. The snake wiggled its tail-tip, trying to coil around itself in a small ball, but found itself restrained as it was by the net, every movement tightening the web’s grip on it. A squeak followed every twitch it made as the net pressed harder around it.

Aziraphale made no motion to paddle back home with his prize. Because, what would he do when he got there?

Would he really have it in him to kill and stuff the very same creature who loyally waited for him to come feed it every single day, who seemed to take pleasure in entertaining the man with childish jester during the long hours of fishing? Would he give it away to some random zoo just to be displayed as a trophy, where people would spare hardly a glance and never know of how wonderful and crafty the serpent was? What would a scoundrel without its audience be?

Worry tugged his heart as doubt crept in further. He didn’t know what there would be to do the following day. No little sea monster to feed, go fishing like always, alone once more. Only Aziraphale wasn’t sure he could go back to the loneliness of before. He had lived years in solitude, but now that he had known the companion of the strange snake, Aziraphale could not imagine losing it.

He tried to imagine his boat, floating on the waves, and no playful bump against the hull. No splashing water and no expressive hisses. What right had him of depriving the poor creature of its freedom, when it had never been anything other than good company?

Why did he want to catch it in the first place? Aziraphale couldn’t even remember.

His smile slowly faded from his lips when a quiet question left his mouth.

“Oh, what have I done?”

Cursing himself for being so blind, Aziraphale let go of the serpent’s neck, but it didn’t move. He bit his lips, worried that the animal had suffocated, but the rhythmic rise and fall of its body was proof that it lived. Aziraphale ran his hands through his hair and shook his head.

“What have I done?” he repeated, to no one in particular.

He picked up the knife he always carried with him and started cutting the rope that restrained the snake, trying to control the tears burning in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so terribly sorry, please forgive me...” he kept murmuring while tearing the net to shreds, stroking the serpent’s coils every now and then, trying to sooth the stress the poor creature sure must be feeling.

_“Forgive me...”_

There were no angry hisses, no trying to reach out to bite Aziraphale, just cold numbness.

At last, the serpent was freed. Aziraphale threw what remained of the net into the ocean, then retreated as far as he could from the snake, giving it as much space as it needed. The animal made no motion to move, just kept laying there, trying to keep still, shuddering every time it as much as twitched, as if it hadn’t noticed it was no longer entangled by the net.

As time passed, the air grew colder, and the serpent begun shivering, its breathing coming quick and shallow. Aziraphale stretched the tarpaulin over the snake, before he could remember it wouldn’t make any difference because snakes are cold-blooded, praying that it wouldn’t die somehow, though he could see no logical reason for such a thing to happen. Could it die from shock?

“Don’t die, don’t die, please don’t die, what have I done?” Aziraphale whimpered every now and then, his stomach growing cold with dread when the serpent refused to move even an inch.

They stayed like this for quite some time, small sobs the only sound other than the waves to be heard. After an eternity, the serpent slithered from under the sailcloth and back into the water, disappearing in the darkness of the now dark sky.

Aziraphale made his way back home, and somehow found enough peace of mind to sleep. The following morning, he was out in the sea again, staring at the blue vastness before him, hugging a mouse close to his heart like a lifeline.

There was no snake in the horizon.


	7. Chapter 7

Aziraphale sat at his table at the beach and absentmindedly flipped through the book in his hands. Anathema had found a good encyclopedia on snakes, and the book contained a listing of all species, including pictures. He hadn’t started to actually _read_ anything, and was just looking at the pictures, trying to see if any of them looked like the one he knew.

Just out of curiosity, of course. It had been a week since Aziraphale had last seen the serpent. He didn’t blame the poor animal if it never wanted to come even close to him again. Aziraphale had been the one to betray its trust, after all. He drove the serpent away with a single selfish act, all for nothing.

After looking through all the images, which surprised Aziraphale since he wasn’t able to truly concentrate, he figured the one serpent that looked the most like his friend was the red-bellied black snake, an Australian serpent. It wasn’t a perfect match, however. The red-bellied’s eyes were black, while his serpent’s were a bright yellow, and the head shape wasn’t quite right, but the colors were mostly the same. It could be a crossbreed, who knows.

He put his book down with a sigh, and walked up to his boat, the immense vastness of the fields behind his house looking emptier than ever before. He ended up still going out into the sea every day, entertaining the thought that maybe the serpent would show up. It had forgiven him when he tried to poison it, and when he poked it with the thorny rod, it might just be a little bit angry. The fact was, not waking up to the sound of desperate chicken and boyish hissing was disappointing and he missed it terribly, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

That his mind kept drifting back to the events of that day did not help.

If the serpent decided to come back, it would. It just had to come in the beach, as it had done so many times before. Aziraphale didn’t need to go out into the sea every day, torturing himself in the hopes of forgiveness.

He went there anyways.

He paddled to his usual fishing spot. As the six days before this one, the serpent didn’t come to greet him.

The worst part wasn’t even the feeling of loneliness, through it was easily the most overwhelming. No, the worst was the dread of not knowing the destiny of the snake. The poor thing had looked so crestfallen that night when it slithered off the boat, what if it had accidently bumped with another vessel and got caught? What if it had somehow gotten hurt when Aziraphale attacked it and now needed help?

Aziraphale tried to shake the doubts away, but kept wandering back into them anyways. He decided to take a look in that island he had taken the serpent to not so long ago, pick up some more fruit and, if he accidently came across the creature, oh well, wouldn’t it be a nice coincidence?

No serpent, or at least, none that Aziraphale could see, crossed his path as he walked through the forest.

He still had two mice left, and wasn’t sure what to do with them. In the end, he decided to put them in the freezer, just in case. He would have to come up with another lie if he ever went to buy more.

Aziraphale went back home, feeling like there wasn’t much to do. He had already cared for the chicken (twice) and didn’t feel like reading. At least when the serpent came to visit, Aziraphale could watch it playing with whatever objects it got, or getting angry over a log for no reason and biting random plants growing close to the cottage. Or hiding in the undergrowth, waiting for Aziraphale to come look for it, like a snaky version of hide-and-seek.

He didn’t know how he had lived so many years alone.

The next day, Aziraphale took one mouse to the rocks in the spot he used to fish. He used a line to tie it to the stones, in a way that the water wouldn’t wash it away and anyone trying to grab it would be able to do so without any problems.

“Just a parting gift, my friend,” he murmured to the waves, knowing there wasn’t anyone to hear.

Aziraphale finally gathered enough sense to go to the village and take the fish he had to sell. He went to the fishmonger in order to deliver the fish, and was startled by being poked in the shoulders. He turned around to find himself face to face with the hunter, Gabriel.

“Aziraphale!” he greeted, with one of his generic smiles that never seemed to quite reach the eyes, “It’s been some time, hm? I was wondering, did those traps work, are you still having problems with snakes? If you need any help...”

“No, no, indeed I managed to get rid of that one just fine, thanks.”

“Good to hear that, snakes can be dangerous. See you around!”

“See you...” Aziraphale said as the other man left, “...I guess.”

He didn’t prolong his staying, deciding to go back home as soon as he was done with the fish.

It rained that night, though it didn’t blow out into a storm like the one that had caused the serpent to visit Aziraphale in his cottage for the first time. Who knows, maybe a storm could bring them together once again. But, when the morning came, no animal appeared to check on Aziraphale. Or, at the very least, none that he could see. Once more, this was a day in which he didn’t need to go fishing, but went anyways.

In a gesture that made Aziraphale feel like he was mocking himself, he went to the spot where he had hung the mouse the day before.

It was gone, the tip of rope swinging with the breeze.

Aziraphale froze, and then broke into a grin despite himself, “Still coming after the food, huh? I gotta tell Gabriel somehow that his mice are great. Ever the opportunist, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t see any shadow in the water, but knew very well by now that the serpent could stay out of sight if it so wished. Aziraphale felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders, and sobered up.

“I just want you to know I’m so very, terribly sorry. I don’t even know why I tried so hard to catch you, I mean, we’re friends right? Can you forgive me?”

He scanned the water around him.

“Anyways, I miss you, though I guess the chicken don’t. But their opinion doesn’t matter, right?”

Aziraphale picked up the mouse he had brought with him... just in case. He tied the rodent to the same stone as before.

“I’ll leave this here, okay? I’ll leave a mouse here every day, and you don’t even have to show up or anything. Just... stay healthy, will you?” Aziraphale grin grew bigger, “I’m going to the village tomorrow and buy more mice from Gabriel. He’ll probably think I’m eating them, but I will come up with something. The things you do for a friend...”

“So, the snake came back?” Gabriel asked casually, collecting a box from the back room and dropping it onto the counter.

Aziraphale wished Gabriel would stop trying to make small talk and just go on with the selling part.

“Not really, it’s another one... Not one, really, it’s a whole bunch.”

“Do you think there is an infestation going on? Maybe we should call someone...” he seemed genuinely worried.

“No, I don’t think it’s necessary, actually the rain from two days ago caused quite a lot of rats to wander close to my house, and the snakes... Went after, I guess,” he shrugged, making a bland gesture with his hands, “They are just little corn snakes, I just want them to go back to their homes.”

“Alright, then. Remember to be careful if you find a venomous one.”

“Of course!”

As soon as he got back home, he went back to his favorite fishing spot. Once again, the mouse was gone. Aziraphale sighed, relieved. He couldn’t believe that the serpent still wanted to be friends... or at the very least, take profit of Aziraphale. The shadow was nowhere to be found, but if given enough time, the fisherman hoped he’d be able to regain the serpent’s trust and show that he was deserving of its friendship.

There had to be a reason, right? For the serpent to have chosen him to befriend the first time?

He tied a new mouse to the rock, ranting all along the way, “I managed to get more mice, see? Gabriel didn’t even question too much. I hope you’re doing well on your own, serpent. I certainly could do with your company right now...”

The mouse was safely tied to the stone now, and Aziraphale found it rather foolish to talk to nothing, but...

He smiled to the waves, “I expect to see you sooner than later. The chicken could use some discipline, you know? I better be on my way now... I’ll bring another mouse tomorrow.”

And Aziraphale went back, every day, for a week. The mice he put on the rock never failed to disappear, giving Aziraphale hope when he felt overwhelmed by the lack of company. He found it rather stupid that going back to his secluded life was so hard, but, oh, _it was_. 

The last time he went back home from tying the mouse to the stone, which was now the chore he looked forward the most, he entered his house to pick up a book to read, carefully leaving the encyclopedia on snakes alone, because he had promised to the silent sea only two days ago that he would read that one with the serpent, when it came back. _“I got a book, you know. On snakes. I’ll wait for you and then we can maybe see it together,”_ he had said. Just as he had finished choosing the one he wished to read, Aziraphale heard the chicken, that had previously been peacefully resting inside their pen, start to clunk and flap their wings.

He shot outside, expectative flaring inside his chest, but couldn’t find the source of the commotion. He looked a bit around, but found nothing. Disheartened, Aziraphale went back inside, hoping that it had been a sign of the return of his friend.

The next day, Aziraphale waited by the rocks before tying the mouse up.

“Hello, uh, I have a proposal. I’ll leave the mouse here, and wait for you to come pick it up, how’s that? I’ll wait there,” Aziraphale pointed to a spot far enough away from the stone, “I won’t come closer, I won’t press you, I’ll just watch. I’ll wait for three hours, so if you still don’t want to see me, just wait for me to go, alright?”

He proceeded with the mouse, and paddled to the spot he had signaled. He still felt ridiculously stupid for speaking to an animal like that, worst even, speaking to something that might not even _be_ there.

Aziraphale had brought a few books to read in order to pass the time, and every turn of page he looked up at the stone with the mouse.

It didn’t even take long for a blackened shadow to appear under the waves and swim up to the stone. However, there was something wrong about it.

A small head emerged, and... since when did snakes have whiskers? A furry body climbed onto the stone and used its teeth and claws to pick up the mouse with such a familiarity to the action that indicated it had done so many times before.

Because the serpent had never been the one to eat the mouse he brought every day, Aziraphale concluded. It had been that damned otter.

Without a word or backwards glance and feeling defeated, Aziraphale made his way back home.


	8. Chapter 8

Aziraphale had accepted that he wouldn’t be seeing his friend again. The serpent wouldn’t come back; it was a wild animal, and wild animals knew better than to approach potential danger twice. The remaining mice were stored in the freezer, because Aziraphale couldn’t quite part with them yet. Maybe he’d give them to the that otter later.

He itched to read the encyclopedia, to look for further info on snakes. Was it normal for them to be so friendly, or had Aziraphale met the rare exception? Was there a species that lived at the sea? But he refused to break the promise he had made – to read that book with said serpent. At least, not yet.

Aziraphale decided to do something he hadn’t done in many years – the last time he’d gone exploring had been maybe five years ago. When he first moved to the island, Aziraphale had started to explore the wilderness outside of his cottage, making maps and discovering every inch there was to be found. He had even explored some caves, though he didn’t enjoy those. He had taken trips from one side of the island to the other, a trip that took around two weeks to make by foot, but was worth it to see the land.

There really wasn’t much more to find in his island, but there were other, smaller islands around there, much like the one where Aziraphale had taken the snake that one time. He had been to one or two of them, but the call of adventure had been already wearing down by then, and he never paid much attention to them.

But now, with his days seeming quite empty with nothing but reading to do, and there was only so much one could read in a day, Aziraphale found it a nice opportunity to finally take a look at the other islands. In the afternoon, he packed up all he’d need to spend a nice day in the wild, and took his boat to the smallest island available.

There wasn’t a forest in this one. The place was circled by big and pointy rocks, making it difficult to get to the shore without damaging the boat. The whole island was made of small rocky hills, with the occasional tree growing in the small patches of grass. There were many cracks between the rocks, and some bigger caves. Like always, Aziraphale pulled the boat far into the sand, and picked up his backpack.

He was aiming to hike up to the tallest hill – which wasn’t all that big at all – and have a picnic while appreciating the view.

The ground wasn’t steep like a mountain’s, so Aziraphale only had to walk, not climb. The top of the hill was plain, so he sat down and opened his backpack, extending a cloth over the rocks and opening up his picnic basket. He checked his compass, making sure he knew where he had put his boat, and set the instrument aside.

The view was beautiful, even if stones and some birds were about all one could see. The sun was shining lazy in the sky, not too warm, complemented by the sea breeze that swept all across the island. Before Aziraphale knew it, he had fallen asleep. Hours later, he woke up to a blackened sky, drastically different from the sunny day above him when he had fallen asleep.

The rain hadn’t yet begun to fall, but it would obviously begin soon. The lightnings were still very far away, despite the dark clouds above. Surprised by the sudden change in weather and the apparent lateness, Aziraphale put everything back into his bag and fumbled the ground after his compass, but failed to find it.

He knew he had put the compass on the ground close to the basket, but now it was gone. Aziraphale reasoned that he had most likely pushed it over the edge of the hill as he slept. He scanned quickly the sides of the hill, but couldn’t find the compass. It could have fallen inside any of the crevices and Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to find it again. Thankfully, he knew the general direction he had parked the boat, so Aziraphale made his way down and back to the beach as fast as he could.

It wasn’t too hard to find the boat, but Aziraphale wasn’t sure it was safe to try and go back to his island, not without a compass and in the darkening sky. On the other hand, Aziraphale didn’t bring any tent with him, and didn’t have the equipment to camp. It was, after all, just a quick trip to have a picnic and go back.

He scolded himself anyway for not bringing anything just in case. This was how people got lost, he should’ve known better.

Aziraphale supposed he could use his tarpaulin to spend the night at the island, but he wasn’t sure the cloth would be enough against the cold night. In the end, he decided to take his boat to the sea and go back home. Or at least try to. He wasn’t used to this part of the sea, but he was confident that he could retrace his way back.

He really should have known better.

It soon became obvious that Aziraphale couldn’t go back without his compass and while it was dark. The first droplets of rain had started to fall, and the thunders were getting close. Aziraphale cursed himself for being so stupid; trying to navigate like that was the cause of so many shipwrecks, and of ships much studier than Aziraphale’s. The best course of action would be to go back to the small island and wait for the storm to pass and look for the compass in the morning, and that was now obvious to Aziraphale. Except, he had lost sight of the island.

Aziraphale was being careful to keep the island within his line of sight, but somehow between trying to guide himself by using the stars (which he could hardly see thanks to the storm) and the growing relentlessness of the sea, his boat had floated a bit too far, and Aziraphale only noticed so too late.

Aziraphale was starting to lose hope and to contemplate the possibility of trying to control the boat against the increasingly big waves. Sleep wasn’t much of a problem – he had slept the whole afternoon away, after all – but added to the storm was the possibility of being attacked by a shark, or accidently collide with rocks. The possibilities were endless. When, by sheer luck, Aziraphale caught sight of another piece of land, certainly one of the other islands. This one didn’t have rocks surrounding it, which Aziraphale was thankful for.

What followed was a scary night. This island was too small to shelter predators, thankfully, but Aziraphale stayed up the whole night, tangled in his tarpaulin and feeling very cold, shooting fearful glances upwards every time he saw a lighting, praying that it wouldn’t hit close to where he was. He had turned the boat upside down and leaned it against a thick, but low, tree to provide more shelter from the rain, but the fear of a fire never quite left him.

When the storm finally subdued, close to dawn, Aziraphale thanked the heavens and napped a little bit while the sun rose, and the rain came to a halt. Now, he just had to find a way to go back to home.

Aziraphale didn’t have much hope in that regard, except maybe waiting for the next night and trying to use the stars, if the sky was clear enough.

He was going to turn the boat upwards again when Aziraphale saw something curious sprawled against the sand, immobile.

Walking on the tip of his toes, Aziraphale approached the black shape and grinned, a dread weight lifting off his shoulders.

“Well, well, well, it looks like I’m being stalked. How long have you been following me?”

The serpent hissed loud and angry, and then straightened up, raising its head as tall as it could, swinging threateningly from side to side.

Aziraphale kneeled on the sand in front of the reptile, trying to push aside any fear of being attacked. He didn’t believe the serpent would do that. It was, as Aziraphale had come to notice, more bark than bite. Then he spoke, quietly.

“I’m so sorry for throwing some gardening net on you and try to... do whatever I was trying to do, I don’t even know anymore.”

The serpent lowered the volume of the hissing, but kept wavering its tongue at Aziraphale.

“Can you forgive me?”

The hissing stopped, though it didn’t quite leave the threatening pose.

“Can you take me home?”

Aziraphale went back to the boat, turning around once to confirm that the serpent was following him, through it kept a wary distance and looked much like a spooked animal.

“You sure are a ball of nerves, are you not? But then, I can’t blame you.”

He pushed the boat upwards, while the serpent circled him and went straight to where Aziraphale had stacked his things, hissing softly after further inspection.

“I’m sorry but, no mouse today.”

The serpent hissed again, as if Aziraphale had thrown some kind of personal insult at it.

“Come on now,” Aziraphale picked up his stuff and put everything back into the boat, registering with a pang how the serpent backed up several meters when he went closer, “It’s not as if I had any more use to them. You were gone for weeks.”

The serpent glared at him.

“Not blaming you.”

The serpent laid on the ground again.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes with a smile and pushed the boat back to the water, the serpent entering the waves soon after.

“Come on, buddy. Show me the way home.”

The serpent dived in the water and resurfaced some meters ahead. Aziraphale turned on the engine that he rarely ever used, and followed the reptile as it swam through the water.

Aziraphale felt even more stupid and crazy to be following a serpent around, but he had learned that this specific individual was a box full of surprises.

They went on for the better part of the day. Aziraphale was surprised by his friends’ stamina to keep swimming for hours on end and on a steady speed, and was understanding when it stopped to rest. It didn’t play around, just slithered up some stones and basked in the sun. Aziraphale was left to wonder if the lack of jester was due to tiredness or if it was still angry. Time passed, and the serpent didn’t seem willing to get out of the rock.

Aziraphale guessed that it had exerted itself and coughed to call the serpent’s attention, who raised its head sluggishly, as if it had just wakened up (it had) and flicked its tongue at the finger pointing to the edge of the boat.

“If I may suggest, I can take you on the boat if you want, no need to swim to exhaustion.”

The serpent snapped its head away from Aziraphale, but some seconds later slithered up the prow in utmost silence, and perched as far away from Aziraphale as it could. Then, it glared at the rods the fisherman used to scare sharks away.

“Really, there’s no need to, I won’t...” Aziraphale sighed, “But I could, okay, I get it.”

He threw the rods into the ocean.

“If we get attacked by a shark, it’s your fault.”

And Aziraphale turned the boat to the direction the snake was looking, and after most of the afternoon, Aziraphale could see his island in the horizon.

“We did it! I’m back! Oh dear, we sailed for a whole day, did I stray that far last night?”

The serpent begun to disentangle from its perch, but Aziraphale raised his hands.

“Wait! Wait till we’re back. I have mice stored,” the serpent interrupted its motion and just looked at Aziraphale, “There, see? _Thank you_ ,” he put all the warmth and sincerity he could muster into those words.

The serpent flicked its tongue once, twice, and averted its gaze, Aziraphale smiling all the while.

“Oh, you. We’ll get there in a few minutes.”

When the boat touched the small pier, the snake transferred to the shore and glanced to Aziraphale with the looks of a tax collector.

Aziraphale went inside, and strode back outside holding a mouse, just in time to see the smug slither of the serpent bring it back from inside the chicken pen, holding a brown feather in its jaw.

Aziraphale laughed, “back at it already?”

He threw the mouse at the serpent, who gulped it down with pleasure. Then, it picked up the feather and crawled slowly to Aziraphale, let the feather fall to the ground and slithered back a few feet. Aziraphale softened and picked up the gift, bowing his head.

“Thank you. Will I see you tomorrow?”

The serpent just slithered back to the sea, but Aziraphale felt hopeful.


	9. Chapter 9

Aziraphale was on his bed, sick. Spending the night out there had given him a good old cold, complete with fever. There was nothing to do, except rest and eat chicken soup until he got better. Aziraphale decided to get up by the morning and cook the soup before indisposition hit him harder. While he waited for the water to boil, a black head appeared at the window, flicking its tongue at the glass.

“Good morning,” he greeted the serpent, his voice hoarse.

It glared at Aziraphale, still drawn back as if ready to attack. The fisherman left the pan on the oven and went in the back to pick up a mouse. The serpent followed him through the windows, backing several meters away when he opened one of them, left the mouse on the rail and closed the window again.

The serpent approached again and dramatically inspected the mouse before gulping it down with exaggerated movements of its body.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes at the drama, although he was smiling, “You’re so funny, you should go to the circus.”

Aziraphale finished cooking the soup with the serpent watching from the window with interest and somehow keeping a hostile posture all the time. He didn’t think going outside while being sick was a very good idea, even if what he wanted was to go out there and try to somehow make it up to his friend, probably do something to show that he was truly sorry and wanted nothing more than friendship.

He walked to the window instead and pressed his hand to the glass, slowly drawing shapes on it with his thumb, “Thank you for yesterday. And again, I’m sorry. I hope I can make it up to you. Hope you can forgive me.”

The serpent struck at the glass and rattled its tongue. Aziraphale just sighed and smiled sadly at it. The serpent slid off the window and back to the ground outside.

Aziraphale tried to go back to bed and rest the sickness away, but not even ten minutes passed before the chicken begun flapping and screaming, eliciting a small laugh from Aziraphale.

He didn’t see the serpent around for the rest of the day and guessed it had gone back to wherever it lived.

The following day, Aziraphale was feeling better enough to at least go outside and feed the chicken. There was no sign of the serpent that day, which left Aziraphale disappointed. But he was going to respect the distance the snake wanted to keep, and give it as much time as it needed to accept Aziraphale back.

The following day, Aziraphale was happy to see a hesitant serpent slithering at the beach and up to the house. He picked up his book on snakes and sat on the ground. He put the book on the sand, cringing at the grains soiling the cover, and slowly pushed it towards the animal, leaving it halfway between them. It didn’t react to the book, preferring to just keep hissing and glaring at Aziraphale.

“It’s a book. On snakes.” Aziraphale stated, ignoring the defiant hisses and the uncertain way the serpent kept coiling and uncoiling itself, trying to give his best possible smile.

“I found one that looks quite like you,” He opened the book on the page of the red-belied snake and pointed at the pictured. The serpent arched forward and looked at the picture, tipping its head.

“See, it says here that the biggest snake alive was fourteen meters long, and snakes nowadays can be six meters, sometimes people find ones that are ten meters long. You’re not so big then, ah?” Aziraphale grinned at the serpent, who now seemed annoyed, “What are you, a little bit less than two meters? The biggest snake I’ve seen, but not the biggest in the world.”

He turned the pages and showed other pictures to the serpent. After some time, it was more at ease, though it looked up and backed away every time Aziraphale moved too abruptly. The serpent didn’t stay long, going back to the sea.

The serpent seemed to visit every other day, and made a point to look displeased and angry every time. Aziraphale let it be, just trying to show goodwill and patience, most of the days just sitting at whatever distance the serpent accepted and keeping company. He hadn’t gone fishing in quite some time, wanting to be fully recovered before going out into the sea. When he did go fishing, the serpent stubbornly refused to go with him, hissing and disappearing in the fields behind the house.

He was surprised by a visit by the clerk who both owned and worked at the fishmonger, Newton.

He went to check up on Aziraphale because he hadn’t gone to the village to bring fish for almost two weeks, and had been worried about the fisherman. Aziraphale had been touched by the younger man’s worry, and guaranteed him that he had only caught a cold and would be back to work soon.

What did worry Aziraphale, however, was another thing the clerk had told him while they chatted over a cup of tea.

“So, I didn’t come alone, because I don’t know the exact way from the village to here, so I borrowed a horse and asked Gabriel, that hunter, to show me the way. Anyways, in the way we saw this snake, it was quite big and had a shiny red underbelly, and you know what they say, animals with bright colors are venomous. Anyways, Gabriel went to take a look at it.”

Aziraphale nodded and smiled, inwardly praying that the serpent wouldn’t do something stupid.

“Snakes do seem to have taken a fancy for my house.”

Just in that moment, the chicken screeched higher than Aziraphale had ever heard before, and much more panicked than when the serpent played with them. The sound of something crashing against wood echoed around the house and Aziraphale rushed to the window and looked outside.

Half of the fence of the chicken pen had been knocked down and there were many feathers on the ground and some spilt blood. Aziraphale ran outside, the clerk on his heels, just in time to see a wolf running away from the crime scene, limping and with a bloody leg. Aziraphale shook the clerk, who was staring at the disappearing shape, and pointed to the desperate birds.

“Help me get them back to the hennery!”

Aziraphale picked up a bag he always kept close to the pen and filled with birdseed and threw the seeds inside the house and started to pick up the birds and usher them inside with help from the clerk. Some birds had run away, walking around not too far away while some had gone running to the fields or to the forest. Aziraphale closed the hennery and surveyed the damage. There were two dead chicken on the ground.

“What the hell just happened?” Newton asked as the shock worn off.

“I guess the wolf wanted an easy kill,” Aziraphale stated, matter-of-factly

Aziraphale’s mind wandered to the time when the serpent had ceased to visit him, to the day the chicken had screeched out of nowhere and he thought it was his friend. Could it have been that wolf?

They went back inside and Newton resumed his cup of tea, his hands trembling slightly.

“What the wolf is still out there?”

Aziraphale considered for a moment.

“I don’t think wolves usually attack people. I think it just wanted the chicken.”

“What if it keeps coming back?” The clerk whispered.

“I’ll find a way to deal with it, if it comes back.” Aziraphale frowned. Wolves usually stayed at the northern parts of the island, he had never seen any of them stray this far. Must be a stray. He also didn’t think _this_ predator was looking for friendship.

A tentative knock at the door warned of another visit. Guessing it would be Gabriel, he opened the door, confident that the hunter would have some fun story about how the serpent somehow fooled him and made him walk in circles for much of the time. What Aziraphale didn’t expect was to see Gabriel holding said serpent in his arms, covered in blood and eerily immobile. Gabriel seemed to be limping himself and looked blankly at Aziraphale.

“I can explain.”


	10. Chapter 10

Aziraphale froze in dazed shock. How – what had Gabriel _done_? There was no way, not even the remote possibility, that the serpent would have been stupid enough to be mauled by Gabriel so. He felt tears started to gather in his eyes, and his mind barely registered the weak flickering tongue and almost inaudible hiss. He felt his energy draining, and found himself unable to even scream at Gabriel.

What had happened to his friend?

“Aziraphale? It’s still alive, but I need your help, please,” Gabriel said, calmly, when he saw the color drain from Aziraphale’s face.

Aziraphale blinked the tears away, confused, a part of him still unable to process what was happening, but he guided Gabriel inside and cleaned off the table in the room and the hunter gently scooped the serpent down onto it.

“Guys what is happe… Oh my god,” Newton said when he saw the serpent.

“I don’t know what to do,” Gabriel started.

“Stop the bleeding,” Newton opined, trying not to look at the wounded animal.

Aziraphale ran to pick up the first aid kit, his mind a swirl of thoughts, “Gabriel, what happened?” he asked as he opened the box up and ran his fingers through the serpent’s side, trying to discover exactly where the wound was. Newton helpfully gave him a water jar and a piece of cloth to clean the blood away.

The coils felt very cold, and Aziraphale had no idea if it was normal or not. Snakes were cold-blooded, so being too cold was bad, but how many of these rules applied to this particular serpent who spent so many time away at sea?

“It’s a bite. It was bitten by a wolf.” Gabriel supplied, holding the serpent still when it tried to slither away from the crowd so Aziraphale could clean the blood.

Aziraphale didn’t think he understood clearly and wanted to get the full story as soon as the serpent was stable again. Because he was sure his friend would be fine. It had to.

He could see where the serpent had been bitten, and pressed the damp cloth to the teeth marks, and let out his breath when he saw the bleeding was diminishing, though there were a lot of scratch marks along its body.

Aziraphale breathed heavily for a few more seconds, and turned to see Gabriel had sat on a chair and was inspecting a hurt ankle.

“What do you mean, ‘a wolf bit it’?”

He knew it had probably been the same wolf from earlier, but wolves didn’t attack snakes out of nowhere, or so he thought. Moreover, the serpent wouldn’t attack a wolf – or would it?

“I saw this snake when Newton and I were on the way here. It is a bit big to be one of your swarm of corn snakes, by the way. I thought the colors were pretty and just wanted to take a closer look, I swear.”

Aziraphale felt the urge to ask the frequency with which Gabriel followed animals he thought pretty through forests, but bit down the question in favor of getting the whole story.

“I followed it around for some time, honestly I think it was joking me or something, and this wolf jumped out of nowhere and came after me. I stumbled on a root and sprained my ankle,” He pointed at his swollen limb, “Then the serpent appeared out of nowhere and bit one of the wolf’s legs, and the wolf attacked it, but ran away as soon as it disentangled from the snake.”

“This serpent saved my life, I think” Gabriel finished.

So the serpent was not only disturbingly self-conscious, it was also a damned hero or something. Aziraphale rolled his eyes inwardly, exasperated and fond. He was starting to calm down and his heart was beating at regular speed again as he felt the snake below him begin to warm up and squirm under his hands.

“There’s no vet in the village, right?” Aziraphale asked quietly.

“No,” Newton confirmed, “There’s the medic, but I don’t think he would be able to help. I don’t know about the other villages, but in the capital there are vets.”

“The bleeding’s stopped… It looks fine,” Gabriel said.

“If it’s infected though…” Aziraphale shook his head, satisfied that he could still think properly despite the circumstances. He kept rubbing the cloth slowly through the coils, cleaning off what blood remained.

When the serpent begun to squirm more vehemently, Newton grabbed Aziraphale’s shoulder and pulled him back. Of course, he knew the serpent wouldn’t bite him, or so he hoped, but Gabriel and Newton didn’t.

“What do you wanna do?” Newton asked to Gabriel.

“I think we should take it to the vet at the city.”

Aziraphale didn’t think Gabriel got to decide what to do with the serpent. Besides, what would a vet say when they found out that this serpent wasn’t quite a regular animal? A vet would be able to tell it wasn’t of any known species, for sure?

Besides, he didn’t know if the serpent needed a vet. He had hurt it once, with the rod, and it healed just fine.

And of course, Gabriel and Newton didn’t know about that, and even Aziraphale thought his history with the snake was a little bit too unbelievable and fantastic. Either he would have to get on board with their plan, or help the serpent make some wondrous escape.

“Let’s do it then. How will we take it?” Newton asked.

“I have a big leather bag in the back,” Aziraphale pointed at the place with his finger.

When the other two left the room to fetch the bag, Aziraphale inched closer to the serpent, “Will you be alright? Do you want to go away? We can take you to a medic,” he asked, feeling awkward for expecting an answer.

The serpent just hissed, low and weak, only for Aziraphale to hear. Then it tried to slither off the table, but he held it and pushed the snake back up, “We’re taking you to the vet, no discussion,” He decided.

The serpent coiled tighter around itself and shivered a little. Gabriel and Newton got back, holding a big leather bag between them. The clerk tipped his head, “So, how do we scoop it inside and not get bitten?”

“Open the bag, I hold the neck down and put it inside,” Aziraphale knew he was the most likely to be able to do so, through the serpent wouldn’t like it in the slightest. The last time he had touched the snake, it hadn’t been a particularly nice experience.

He grabbed the serpent and held it gingerly, and it immediately tried to wiggle free of his grip, not trying to bite to Aziraphale’s relief, but he held it tighter, “Sorry, buddy.”

He slid the serpent inside the bag carefully, and it hissed, sounding more annoyed than angry. The three went outside, Aziraphale holding the bag and trying to accommodate the shifting animal the best way possible. Two horses were outside, presumably the ones Gabriel and Newton used to get to Aziraphale’s house in the first place.

“I think I won’t be able to go…” Gabriel started, “My ankle is starting to hurt pretty badly. I should go check it with the doctor of the village,” he shot an apologetic glance at the other two.

“It’s okay, we’ll take care of the snake, go see your ankle,” Newton said.

Gabriel nodded and got on one of the horses, “Just follow the main road to the east of the village and you’ll get to the city. You should get there before night,” he spurred his horse and shot off.

Aziraphale mounted the same horse as Newton, with awkward difficulty, and they got moving.

Keeping his balance and trying to hold the snake in the bag, who wouldn’t for the love of god _stop squirming_ , was not an interesting experience. The serpent just seemed incapable of relaxing. They didn’t talk much on the trip, and Aziraphale was relieved when they finally could see buildings in the distance.

They entered the city, and Aziraphale could see it had changed quite a lot since he had last been there. There were taller buildings now, and lots of ships coming and going from the harbor. The streets were paved and there were even some cars, and the streets were more crowded than he remembered.

There were other people on horses though, enough that Newton and Aziraphale didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. They asked around for directions on how to get to the veterinary, one specialized on snakes if possible. There was one who took care of reptiles, thankfully, and they soon found their way into the vet building.

"We have a wounded snake," Newton declared when they approached the counter, using the same tone of voice one would use to ask for a beer. Newton had obviously never been to a veterinary.

The secretary eyed the bag dubiously and Aziraphale gave her a reassuring smile. She gave them a small sheet to fill, and then asked, "How grave is it?"

"He was bitten by a wolf, and the bleeding's stopped, but we fear the possibility of infection," Aziraphale supplied.

Two nurses appeared to take the bag away, and they eyed Aziraphale with suspicion, as though carrying a snake around in a bag wasn't the single most brilliant idea.

Aziraphale didn't like to leave his friend like this. The serpent would be very angry, probably, and stressed. It wasn't Aziraphale's fault if it decided to wrestle with a wolf and got itself in this situation.

He reasoned that the professionals would not let anything bad happen to the serpent and hoped that thought was enough to bring him some semblance of peace of mind. Opening the door to find a friend covered in blood made one’s energy drain fast.

The two sat at the chairs of the waiting room, Aziraphale pinching the bridge of his nose and feeling the migraine building up. Newton at least looked happy writing on the paper given to the them.

"Is it male or female?" Newton asked as he filled the sheet.

"How am I supposed to know?! Not like I had much time to take a look," he glanced at the clerk from the corner of his eyes. In reality, the fisherman had no idea, despite knowing the animal for quite some time. Another mystery to uncover, apparently.

Newton filled some more lines, then poked Aziraphale on the side.

"Should we put a name?"

Aziraphale's mind jumped to a shady writer whose poetry he had actually enjoyed and the books about spiritualism he found quite entertaining. An obscure magician's name to a mysterious serpent sounded about right.

"Put Crowley, sounds nice." Aziraphale shrugged, not bothering to elaborate on the choice.

Newton finished writing with everything they knew about the serpent, which wasn't much. He didn't bother about contact info; as far he was concerned, they'd just put the serpent back into the nature once they were done.

For Aziraphale's relief, it didn't take long for them to be called in to the doctor's room. Newton stayed behind, worried that there would be blood and he had already met his daily quota of gory. The serpent was imprisoned in a glass terrarium with a lamp turned on for warmth and its mouth muzzled. His heart clenched at the sight of his unflagging friend being confined to such a tiny space, with nothing but a small stone to rest its head on, the eyes missing the usual shine as it stared straight ahead.

The serpent hurriedly lifted its head and hissed upon seeing Aziraphale enter the room, as if begging for help.

“Good afternoon, sir. Is this serpent yours?” the doctor asked, her brow furrowed.

“Not really, we… Found it wounded close to my house,” Aziraphale answered, not dwelling on the epic fight with the wolf, “How did you know?”

She pushed the sheet Newton had filled towards them with a smile, “Gave me a good laugh, thanks.”

Newton had not, in fact, written on any of the lines. Instead, he just scribbled a message in the big space marked as “Other considerations”, which would more traditionally be used to point out anything else the vet should know about the animal and used the space to answer all the questions:

_“Sorry, we just found it lying around :(. Idk the gender, we didn’t think about looking. Honestly, don’t even know how to check a snake’s gender. It’s not our pet or anything, really hope it doesn’t have any allergies, and Aziraphale wants to call it Crowley I guess. Species? Didn’t even know snakes had those.”_

Aziraphale huffed a laugh of his own, “My friend wrote this, not me.”

The serpent started to punch its head against the cage’s wall and squeak wretchedly, fixing the fisherman with the unblinking stare. Aziraphale tried to signal under the table for his friend to wait, and it at the very least stop squeaking, but kept banging its head to the glass.

“You were right to bring the serpent here, the wound wasn’t infected, but needed proper cleaning. Infection can still happen though, so he – it’s male, by the way – should take antibiotics for a week. I take it you will leave him here?”

Aziraphale shook his head and rushed to reply, “I can take care of him.”

“If it’s a wild snake, I can’t recommend you to take him home, if you don’t know how to handle a serpent. I have never seen a snake quite like this, but judging by the shiny colors and slitted pupils, it’s safe to say he is venomous.”

Aziraphale wanted to take the serpent back to the coast where it (he?) belonged as soon as possible. The poor dear seemed to be suffering just by being locked inside a cage, even if the terrarium was appropriated for his size, if the head banging was any sign. The vet was starting to look concerned herself with the continued banging.

_It’s because he is a free spirit_ , Aziraphale realized. The serpent belonged to the wild, where he was free to roam the fields, making fun of the world for his own sake, slithering about with a wiggle that exuded irony and relentless eyes that never slept.

So, Aziraphale told an innocent lie.

“Oh, I have owned snakes before. Don’t worry, I know how not to get bitten.”

The serpent, apparently Crowley now, chose this moment to cease the glass-banging and rose his neck higher, action that Aziraphale interpreted as a raised eyebrow.

Crowley resumed pressing his forehead to the glass, and the veterinary gave Aziraphale the medicine he should give him. She also commented that, before putting Crowley back into nature, Aziraphale might want to give him to a rehab group, to make sure he could still survive on his own. Crowley hissed and rattled his tail at that, and Aziraphale nodded, promising silently that that would be the last thing he would ever do. The serpent was unusual, and Aziraphale was sure this specific individual would have no problems on going back to live by himself.

He also bought a transport cage, because he had no idea how else to transport Crowley back, and he doubted either snake or veterinary would appreciate the bag option. Crowley tried to escape during the terrarium-to-cage transfer, but the assistants triumphed over him.

He kept glaring at Aziraphale as he finally went back to the waiting room and payed the consult (the price left poor Newton wide-eyed). The two men walked outside, and it was already dark. Aziraphale was aware of Crowley’s wary stare at the painfully familiar situation.

The fisherman told Newton the serpent was fine and ready to be freed in the wild again. He supposed the serpent would not appreciate it if Newton hovered around to help give him medicine.

There was still a stable in the city, and a nice hotel that accepted animals for Aziraphale and Newton to spend the night. Each of them went to their respective bedrooms. They would go back to village by the morning, and Newton bid Crowley goodnight, as if he were talking to a little kitten.

When he entered his room, Aziraphale set the cage down on the bed table and wrung his fingers repeatedly, letting a few sighs before speaking, not failing to notice the small flickering tongue, coming out with such frequency that made Aziraphale think the serpent was anxious.

“If I let you out, you promise not to run away? I know you don’t like being stuck. We are quite far from where you normally live. I will take you back tomorrow morning and you have to go on this cage again. But you still have to take medicine," he showed the bottle to Crowley.

Because of course the serpent had this level of understanding. 

If Aziraphale let the serpent out and he didn’t escape somehow, there would still be the problem of getting him inside the cage again. Aziraphale didn’t think he would accept to be stuck again. If the serpent refused to go back to the transport cage later…

Aziraphale smiled at the creature huddled in the corner, “Also, I kinda just named you Crowley,” Taking a decision, Aziraphale reached for the door and opened the cage, “You can come out, Crowley.”

The serpent slithered off the cage, hesitant, and Aziraphale reached to carefully remove the muzzle, the serpent coiling the smallest possible as the fisherman did so. Then, he stepped back. Crowley got down from the table and onto the ground, and explored the dark space under the bed. Then, he took more courage and begun to explore the whole room, slithering around at varying speeds, and Aziraphale could almost hear the _James Bond_ theme playing in the background. The serpent’s movements were more sluggish and careful, and Aziraphale guessed he still felt some pain from the wounds.

Aziraphale didn’t take long to go to sleep, feeling very tired, and Crowley was still wandering the room when he turned the lights off. He did not sleep well, suddenly scared of the serpent slithering below. Aziraphale only really caught two hours of sleep, after he tricked and locked Crowley on the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He forgot about that particular action after going back to sleep and was surprised when, in the morning, he went to the bathroom and found a mildly angry snake waiting inside.


	11. Chapter 11

Aziraphale had recovered from the shock of opening the bathroom door to see the serpent race past him and rattle his tail. The fisherman remembered locking Crowley in there, but the memory was hazy. It was almost time he met Newton to go back to the village, and he really hoped the serpent would enter the cage peacefully, and at the same time was sure it would not happen.

When Aziraphale left the bathroom, he noticed Crowley had apparently fallen asleep on the ground under the table. He could not be sure, because no eyelids, but the serpent was coiled tightly around himself and very still. He had a great idea, slowly circled the table, picked up the pillows and, one by one, he blocked the sides of the table and put the open cage on the last open side.

There was a travel guide on the table, and Aziraphale muttered a “sorry” before throwing it on the ground, causing a loud bang! noise. Crowley woke up startled and, in a frenzy, tried to leave through the only open exit, and entered right into the cage. Aziraphale closed the door and his friend hissed viciously and glared at him with pure hatred.

“Hey buddy, we agreed you had to come back inside today.”

If the following snarls were any indication, Crowley did not agree. Aziraphale picked up the cage, and the serpent was determined to make everything as hard as possible by thrashing inside, trying to cause Aziraphale to drop him.

Aziraphale met Newton in the hotel hallway, fighting to balance the cage against the furious reptile. The clerk went to retrieve the horse, and Aziraphale sat in front of the hotel, waiting for him. All the noise Crowley was doing was starting to draw attention from passersby, and Aziraphale was worried the serpent would end up hurting himself. He leaned to the cage, where Crowley kept flinging around like a panicked parakeet, and whispered conspiratorially:

“And you must be so hungry, I’ll give you as many mice as you wish when we get back.”

The struggle lessened a little, making the trip back at the very least easier, but still hard. Newton was pleased when he didn’t get lost, and suggested they called Gabriel to see them free the serpent back into nature. Aziraphale just wanted to let Crowley go as soon as possible, but supposed Gabriel deserved to see the serpent well again. He had, after all, brought him back to Aziraphale’s house after he was wounded.

The hunter in question had his hurt ankle wrapped up and was walking with the help of a crutch, and was very happy of accompanying Aziraphale and Newton to the edge of the forest.

“Look at you. You are a pretty big snake, aren’t you?” Gabriel said as he peeked inside the cage, “And very venomous. Some people found that wolf, dead because of the bite,” he informed, “That wolf came from the north of the island, he was kicked out of the pack, probably, and strayed this far.”

“Good to know there won’t be more wolves killing chicken,” Aziraphale said.

Aziraphale reached and opened the cage, and the three stepped back as the serpent wiggled quickly out of confinement and disappeared in the forest.

“And there he goes,” Newton said.

“Well, I should go back now. I have fish to catch, before Newton runs out of stock, see you around!”

They bid their farewells, and Aziraphale walked the path back home. When he could no longer see Gabriel and Newton, he turned to the green foliage of the woods.

“I know you’re there.”

Sure enough, a slim shape appeared from inside a bush and flicked his tongue at him.

“Let’s go home,” he said, smiling at the black snake.

Crowley slithered by his side, still much slower than usual, as the two walked back to the shore. Aziraphale was glad the serpent had not decided to go away again, after all of that. 

Crowley didn’t take long, though, breathing heavily and looking tired. Aziraphale stopped, waiting for him to get ready to keep walking, with all the patience in the world. He wasn’t in a hurry, and his friend’s healthy was the important matter at the moment. The serpent hissed as soon as he noticed that and pushed forward, but wasn’t able to walk much further before stopping again.

Aziraphale crouched and quietly extended his arm to Crowley. He hesitated at first, then climbed Aziraphale’s arm and settled himself on his shoulders, though the fisherman could feel the tension.

They made it to Aziraphale’s cottage in companionable silence after the serpent relaxed and accepted the lift. Crowley immediately got off the man’s shoulder when they got to the house and sat by the doorway, once more the loan shark. At least, Aziraphale could put the antibiotics inside the mouse. He entered the house, put one of the pills inside the rodent and threw it to the serpent. 

“Take it, little greedy serpent.”

He gulped down the rodent enthusiastically.

“Well, I’m not up to going fishing today,” Aziraphale said the words he never thought he would say. And remembered the chicken he had locked inside the hen house after the wolf attack, the day prior. They must be starving by now. He facepalmed, “I forgot the chicken!”

Crowley shot him a disapproving glance.

There were still the two dead chicken outside, and they were starting to smell. Aziraphale picked up a garbage bag and put the bodies inside, trying not to breath in their small. Crowley watched close by, almost disappointed of the poor birds who failed to escape their doer.

There were still the chicken who had escaped, who Aziraphale hoped he would be able to find soon. After getting rid of the bodies, the fisherman fed the chicken inside their barn, careful not to let any of them out since the fence was still knocked down. That part was easy; as soon as the birds saw Crowley, they lost whatever interest they had in seeing the outside world.

Aziraphale set out to work on fixing the fence. It wasn’t hard, but the repairs would only be temporary. He had to build a stronger fence later. The hardest part was Crowley, who immediately perched on the fence, satisfied with being at eye level with Aziraphale. The serpent was surprisingly heavy, and kept slithering up and down on his new perch, making it hard to hold the fence down.

Aziraphale guessed it was the petty revenge for being locked up in a cage. 

“That wolf killed those two chickens and took another one,” Aziraphale commented to the serpent by his side as he worked, “Question: were you saving Gabriel or hunting down the one who killed your toys?”

Crowley cocked his head and Aziraphale shook his, smiling.

His priority right now would be to rescue the chicken who had ran away.

“Up to some adventure?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley shook his tail, “Let’s find those runaways.”

He picked up a long twig and walked to the fields behind the cottage, poking the branch to the grass as he went, in a pace he thought wouldn’t be hard for the serpent to follow. It was a slow walk anyways, because the serpent would stop every now and then and take deep breaths, and would hiss every time Aziraphale halted to wait for him, until Aziraphale grew tired of his friend’s shit and offered his arm again, which Crowley took after some more hissing, trying desperately to hang on to some dignity.

They were able to find a hen pecking the ground not too far away from the house. Aziraphale reached to his back, hoping the serpent would take the cue and get off so the hen wouldn’t scare off. He was able to disentangle Crowley from his shoulders without much resistance and huffed a laugh when he noticed it was so because the snake had been _sleeping_.

Judging by the hissing as soon as he was set on the ground, Crowley didn’t like to be forced out of his new perch.

The hen didn’t try to run away when Aziraphale approached and grabbed it, but did fidget when a very impatient serpent slithered up the man’s shoulders again, flicking his tongue ominously at the freaked chicken.

“That was easy,” Aziraphale commented after they made it back to the cottage and the hen was safe with the other birds.

Crowley claimed the table in the living room as his new resting place and just laid there as Aziraphale went about his day, occasionally lifting his head and flicking his tongue at him, but not much interest in anything he did, which worried him. He hoped the sudden fatigue was just a side effect of the wound and too much stimulation at the vet.

Aziraphale could see the bite marks with painful clarity, and a fainter scar, when he once upon a time pierced his friend with the rod. Some time during the afternoon, Crowley curled around himself and fell asleep. Aziraphale extended an old sheet over the sleeping serpent, who twitched in what he interpreted as gratitude.


	12. Chapter 12

“Come on, buddy,” Aziraphale asked to the snake laying on the living room table, “It’s afternoon and I’m going fishing, don’t you wanna come?”

A small sigh and lack of initiative to move from the sleeping spot of the day before made it clear that the serpent had no intention of going with Aziraphale. He shook his head, disappointed, and left a mouse on the table, which Crowley did not try to eat. 

Aziraphale tugged at his coat as he left the house alone, his mind a worried mess as the boat left the shore. Crowley kept sleeping through the morning, and only woke up long after lunch. Aziraphale tried not to dwell too much on the fact. He didn’t know how much the serpent was used to sleeping. It was very possible that he hadn’t slept when they were at the hotel at all and was catching up with his sleep schedule.

When Aziraphale got back, carrying less fish than usual because he didn’t want to leave his friend alone for too long and so decided to end the trip faster, the serpent was still on the table, once more snoring peacefully. The mouse was gone, he noted with relief.

He approached the sleeping animal and uncovered him from the old sheet he had given Crowley the night before. He inspected the wounds, satisfied to note that it was healing just fine.

“Rise and shine,” he said when the head, eyes bleary from sleep, turned around to look at him, “How are you?”

The serpent twisted his body to better face Aziraphale, chin still propped on the table. He did not look like he was going rise from his comfortable table yet.

Aziraphale gave him a rueful smile, heart clenching.

The rest of the day, Crowley stayed on the table, though he looked more attentive every time Aziraphale talked something with him, waggling to the edge of the table closest to him when he spoke.

When Aziraphale warmed up some food to dinner, Crowley tasted the air and hissed with varying pitches at the smells he felt.

After dinner, Aziraphale sat on a chair at the table with a book in his hands, happy to note that the serpent looked more energetic by then, going as far as resting his head on Aziraphale’s wrist propped on the table and nipping the edges of the pages.

The following day was much like the prior. Crowley stayed on the table, and refused to get off. Aziraphale kept him company as much as he could, showing him some books with pictures he had, though Crowley’s interest wasn’t stirred a lot.

The third day, to Aziraphale’s relief, he left the table and instead preferred to lay on the carpet, and followed Aziraphale around the house, though he still didn’t leave the house, not even to go to the chicken pen.

Aziraphale could see he was growing restless when he sat down on the carpet by Crowley’s side to read a book at night and the serpent wouldn’t stop fidgeting. Aziraphale even got him to rest on his shoulders, but when he tried to go outside, the serpent quietly slithered back inside and slept.

The fourth day, Aziraphale had a brilliant idea. He picked up one of the chicken and brought the bird inside, announcing in a happy voice, “Brought one of your friends to visit!”

Crowley liked the idea. He spent the rest of the day playing some kind of tag game with the bird, with Aziraphale watching the game, thankful for the lift of the serpent’s humor.

The next day, after Aziraphale got home from fishing, he saw no sign of Crowley. He wasn’t at his usual spot on the carpet, nor had he gone up to the table. At first, he thought Crowley had gone out and would be back the next day, or after some days, and was happy that he’d decided to finally leave the house.

However, Crowley had not gone out, Aziraphale soon noticed as low, mildly desperate squeaks reached his ears.

“Crowley?” he called, looking around and trying to figure just where he was hiding.

The squeak morphed into the familiar angry hiss. Aziraphale giggled and followed the sound to the fireplace, a heaviness lifting off his shoulders now that Crowley seemed to be at the very least back to his curious self and exploring the interiors.

Between the dark ashes, the bright yellow eyes stared at the approaching man. Aziraphale didn’t know for sure if Crowley was playing in the fireplace or stuck in there, but laughed anyways at the sight of the dirty serpent. There was no sight of the red underbelly with all the ashes covering him.

Aziraphale reached and lifted the serpent, helping him from inside the fireplace. He was confused with why the serpent was letting himself be lifted up, but it soon became clear when he wriggled out of Aziraphale’s grasp and slithered up to his shoulder, methodically going through every clean spot on the man’s coat.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, “Great, now we’re both covered in ashes.”

Crowley stood taller on Aziraphale’s shoulder, too proud for his liking.

Aziraphale stood and tried to shake off some of the dirty, but if anything it only made him dirtier.

A smug head came to Aziraphale’s front and waved his tongue at him. The man just smiled and put a finger under the chin, cleaning off some of the dust with his thumb, “It’s good to have you back.”

Slowly, very slowly and with a good measure of hesitance and flinching during the motion, the serpentine forehead leaned against Aziraphale’s knuckles for some brief seconds. Then Crowley hissed with his jaws wide open and dropped to the ground, slithering over to the fuzzy carpet and helpfully smothering it with the ashes he had picked up.

“Always great to have you back,” Aziraphale repeated, a warm smile on his face.


	13. Chapter 13

Aziraphale looked at the sprawled serpent on the far side of the boat staring intently at the water, his body tense and focused.

“Do you see it?”

Crowley shackled his tongue and arched closer to the water. Then, he shot forward, and Aziraphale thought that he would fall off the boat again, but he managed to pull himself back up, holding a fish in his jaw.

He hissed satisfied and gulped down his prize.

“Nice one!” Aziraphale said, reeling his line to reveal a fish of his own, “Looks like I also got one.”

He smiled as the serpent wove closer to the fish, as if to check its quality. From the way Crowley pushed the fish away, Aziraphale guessed the snake’s had been better.

Going to the sea and playing in the water had livened up the serpent a little, even if he still spent more time napping than he used to. Or maybe that was just an impression because he spent more time at the beach those days. Aziraphale could only hope that Crowley would go back to his usual zippy self.

The fisherman pulled the net, now filled with fish, aboard.

“I think that’s enough for today. Let’s go home, now.”

Just as Aziraphale started to paddle back, Crowley held his head higher and flicked his tongue in the air a few times. Then he slithered off the boat and into the water. He turned back to Aziraphale and let out a low squeal before diving.

“See you around,” He shrugged. He had already given Crowley the day’s medicine, so there was no problem if the serpent decided to go away. It was good that he was going out, after so many days staying inside.

It had dawned on him that the reason for Crowley’s behavior had not been only the fallout of everything that had happened, though it sure played a part, but also that winter was close. During winter, snakes weren’t as active, and would rather stay in warmer places, only leaving their nests to look for food. After winter was gone, he should cheer up more. Or so Aziraphale hoped.

Crowley looked content most of the time, just slept a lot. Often on Aziraphale’s warm shoulders.

For now, Crowley just seemed to have chosen Aziraphale’s house to spend the winter.

Crowley didn’t stay away for long, however. He came back to the shore some hours later, proudly carrying a beautiful stone with carvings on the surface, which he was satisfied to show Aziraphale.

He almost spit his tea when he saw the certainly stolen good.

“That’s new,” He couldn’t stop himself from muttering under his breath.

Crowley just lifted himself above ground level, staring from the stone to Aziraphale with expectative.

“Where did you find this?”

Aziraphale picked up the stone. It was painted with colorful dye and did not look like something that could be found just lying around.

He tried to imagine the serpent slithering up some archeological site, or maybe a souvenir store, and knew he wouldn’t put stealing past the serpent.

The serpent circled Aziraphale meaningfully and bounced up and down, flicking his tongue at the stone in Aziraphale’s hands.

“Thank you, I guess?”

He tucked the stone away in his pocket. The serpent seemed satisfied at that, and wiggled to the chicken pen to indulge in his favorite pastime. Aziraphale had been able to retrieve most of the lost birds, but others he could not find anywhere. The new fence was stronger and a bit taller, but still unable to keep the serpent outside, though it had posed a challenge for Crowley to find out how to get to the top.

This would be the last day of medicines for the serpent. The bite marks had healed just fine and he did not look sick anymore, though he still moved more sluggishly than before. And the subtle fatigue that had not completely disappeared yet.

Aziraphale went back inside and picked up an interesting piece of bark he had found the last time he went looking for the chicken. It had some moss on it and was quite big, and the fisherman thought it might pick up Crowley’s interest. New objects always made him happy. He also picked up a book to read on the beach.

The serpent in question was atop the fence, holding himself as high as possible to throw his shadow at the chicken, who ran to be as far from the shadow as possible. Aziraphale leaned on the fence and offered the bark to Crowley. The serpent flicked his tongue at the piece of wood and waited for Aziraphale to set it on the ground before folding it with his coils and playfully throwing it around.

Aziraphale opened his book and sat at the table outside. He had barely started his reading when something draped over his left shoulder and a black head peeked at the open pages.

“What the...” Aziraphale said as the serpent shifted to better perch on his shoulder and let out a relaxed breath once he was comfortable enough, “Okay.”

Crowley fell asleep not too long after weaving his way up to his new perch, resting his head on the warm shoulder. Aziraphale tried not to disturb the sleeping serpent. And not acknowledge him. His friend did not like it when Aziraphale acknowledged the snaky hug. Funny that companionship was the trigger to shyness.

He did feel content that his friend apparently felt safe close to him.

That was how he spent the rest of the afternoon: reading a book while a wild snake slept on his shoulders.

Aziraphale had gone to the village in order to use the computer in the cafe.

Aziraphale reasoned that, since the serpent situation could not dive any deeper into strangeness, he might as well just research about mythological snakes. After all, myths still sounded more plausible than aliens. Whether or not mythical creatures _were_ aliens was another matter.

The thing was, there were way more snakes in mythologies around the world than Aziraphale thought there would be. Some were protectors of certain people, others were said to bring about destruction. Funnily enough, a good amount of myths had snakes that lived in the sea, like Crowley. Aziraphale doubted his friend lived at the sea, however – he was pretty sure he just enjoyed swimming from time to time.

He didn’t think his friend was a god, but maybe he could be a descendant? Did snake deities come down to Earth to have children? He could be. That would explain why the serpent didn’t act like an actual, well, serpent.

Aziraphale went home satisfied with the temporary answer that Crowley was some type of ancient creature from the depths. It wasn’t like there was anyone to correct that idea.

Crowley met him halfway back to the cottage and invited himself onto Aziraphale’s shoulders, what meant carrying some extra weight for a good kilometer. Even if the serpent had recently found out that the fisherman was the perfect perch, he still didn’t like Aziraphale to acknowledge the fact and expected him to carry on whatever he was doing at any given moment, despite the added entity.

Three days ago, Aziraphale had forgotten himself and tried to pet the ever-swinging head, and the serpent had freaked out and proceeded to disappear for some hours, only to go back and hide under the kitchen sink, because he could still give Aziraphale the cold shoulder while being somewhere warm. Aziraphale had just rolled his eyes and smiled.

Aziraphale had decided to try something, and picked up two pieces of paper, one square and one round. He crouched on the carpet and put the two clearly apart. He reached for the snake on his shoulder, who hissed and punched his snout against Aziraphale’s hand with surprising strength.

“Come on now!” 

Aziraphale managed to get a hold of the coils and pull the serpent towards the ground, though he did not look too happy with being taken from his new favorite resting place, but livened up when he found himself exploring the fuzzy carpet.

“Look, Crowley,” Aziraphale retreated, leaving the two pieces of paper between the two, and Crowley turned his bright eyes to the fisherman upon hearing his name, “If you understand me, bring me the circle,” Aziraphale pointed at the wanted piece of paper.

If that worked... To be honest, Aziraphale didn’t know, but he reckoned it would be surprising.

Crowley cocked his head and inspected both square and circle for a few seconds with the same initial curiosity he dismissed to any new object before slithering up to Aziraphale, brushing both papers aside and once more perching on the man’s shoulders, holding himself tighter than before to emphasize that he wouldn’t go back to the ground any time soon.

Aziraphale smiled, halfhearted and disappointed. He had expected more, some great revelation type of moment, something that would explain the last few months of his life. Closure. Maybe he was really just someone who bonded with a wild animal, even if said animal seemed to defy some rules of biology. It happened sometimes, people who befriended bears and wolves. There probably wasn’t any amazing explanation other than an overly friendly reptile and some amount of projection. Maybe there wasn’t explanation, maybe their friendship didn’t need to make sense. Which did not rule out the mythological hypothesis completely.

Or the serpent was pretending, wasn’t comfortable to spill his secrets yet.

Oh well, Aziraphale did agree it would have been way too easy anyways.

He sat on his armchair in a way that both him and the serpent on his shoulders were comfortable, and opened up a photobook of snakes he bought, and looked through the pictures, laughing every time Crowley let out a critic hiss of the snakes on the page.


	14. Epilogue

Aziraphale had done more research on cryptids and urban legends than he ever thought he would. His friend could be one of the elusive creatures that people claimed to see, or he could not be. The only thing he knew for sure was that he would not get an answer from Crowley himself. A possibility, considering that Crowley was some kind of mythical creature, was that he could maybe feel the intent of actions, but couldn’t understand speech. Or he was pretending, but that would always be a possibility.

To be fair, as time passed, he concluded he didn’t need an explanation to the shadow he had seen swimming at the sea years ago.

Aziraphale did not think the serpent would keep him company for much time. He thought Crowley would eventually leave and go back to wherever he had come from once he grew tired of the fisherman. He didn’t.

Crowley sometimes disappeared for a few days. Once he was gone for a week. Aziraphale didn’t know where he went or what he did, some exploring of his own most likely, and he was curious every time the serpent came back bearing mementos, like more small stones, thankfully of the kind that was most likely found naturally and not stolen, strange feathers or funny leaves and shells. 

But he always came back to the shore and to the cottage where Aziraphale lived. He had chicken to torment, after all, and the carpet was such a nice napping spot.

And turns out he did like those head pats.

Aziraphale had never envisioned himself having any type of pet, let alone having the company of a friend who would turn out to be so dear to him.

It had taken quite some time for him to consider following Crowley when he went out to the sea, and Aziraphale thought it was a funny role reversal. The first thing he noticed was that the serpent went much farther into the ocean than Aziraphale could take his boat. But when Aziraphale followed him, he would stop on one of the small pieces of land that the boat could reach and be eager to explore with Aziraphale.

And just like that, Aziraphale got to know all the small islands he had never bothered to explored. There were different kinds of animals to see and landscapes to admire, and a curious serpent to accompany him.

Crowley enjoyed water fights when Aziraphale went fishing, and the result was that the fisherman often went back home completely soaked, but happy.

During winters, Crowley was less active, slept for longer and sometimes wouldn’t leave the comfy carpet to follow Aziraphale in his fishing endeavors, or would just curl up around the man’s neck when he did, protesting with sleepy and halfhearted hisses every time Aziraphale petted his head. But during the rest of the year, he was just as full of energy and tireless as ever.

Aziraphale never truly understood why the serpent chose to approach his boat in the first place. He was just glad he did. Maybe it was a coincidence and they were both at the same place at the same time.

The fields stretching behind his house and the sea that extended as far as one’s eyes could reach had always been, always felt, empty. Aziraphale had never noticed that fact, but the whole place seemed more alive with the lively serpent that had slithered up his way to Aziraphale’s heart.

Aziraphale reached for the snake floating on the water belly-up, and tickled the exposed belly. The serpent hissed and shook himself violently, sprawling water at the boat and turned around, hiding his belly from view. The fisherman just gave a joyful laugh. The overreactions and exaggerated gestures never failed to cause laughter, even after years.

Crowley slithered up the boat pretending to be very angry, but dropped the facade when Aziraphale gave him a chin scratch.

He also did like those.

Aziraphale went closer and the serpent let him touch his forehead to his.

“My old friend, never ceases to bring joy to the most menial of tasks,” he said, looking deep into the other’s eyes and a fond smile on his face.

The serpent’s tongue flicked over his hand, and Aziraphale smiled as he grabbed the oars to bring them back home.

Sometimes he could never shake away the feeling that the animal had some level of understanding. It sounded impossible not to! Not when Crowley was so expressive and could look at Aziraphale with so much understanding in his gaze. Other times, he was certain that Crowley was just that – a wild snake.

But of one thing he was sure: that serpent was his best friend.

Together, they sailed back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who read until here! Writing this sure was a learn and a lot of fun!
> 
> hope you all enjoyed the ride!


End file.
